


Gadget

by Rhydeble



Category: Worm - Wildbow
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 05:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 36
Words: 114,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7744768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhydeble/pseuds/Rhydeble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if a 19 year old Armsmaster has a small indiscretion What if, almost fifteen year later, he finds out that he has a teenage daughter? This is the story of Sely Wallis, a fourteen year old kleptomaniac tinker, and her adventures in the town of Westlake, Wyoming, eventually moving to the city of Brockton Bay. Starts a year before canon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1.1  
Collin looked out over the future battlefield, snowflakes slowly drifting down, melting as they hit the ground. A happy coincidence. Had the ground been colder, their camouflage shields might have been compromised. Given the sheer amount of prep-time that had gone into this operation, it would’ve been a shame to see it ruined by the weather.

The location had been carefully chosen. It was boxed in by abandoned buildings, right on the edge of the territory that was nominally claimed by Skidmark, close to the empty ship hulls that marked the old docks of the bay.

Slowly but surely, they’d laid the seed for this confrontation. Fake graffiti tags from the empire, sting operations within Winslow high-school, the right rumours spread by people from the Dockworkers association, several fake arrests of undercover operatives, and a fake Protectorate event on the other side of town, all complemented by a team-up with New Wave.

The hum of an engine suddenly penetrated through their optic shielding, louder than expected. Squealer. Everyone’s head turned, looking at the incoming Merchants. Skidmark, Squealer, Mush, Flush, and Snot. None of their names made any sense, which was useful, because you immediately knew whether a given cape was a Merchant or not. At least it was an efficient.

On the other side of the fight would be the Empire, or E88 as they preferred, the eights referring to the eight letter of the alphabet, and through that, to Hitler. Maybe somewhere in some alternate universe, people didn’t immediately know what they meant with their ludicrously transparent codes, but in Brockton Bay-Bet, it wasn’t working.

Unlike the Merchants, the cape roster of the Empire was large enough that they wouldn’t send everyone. It had made preparations more difficult, but not impossible. Given the way in which they had instigated the fight, they could make certain predictions. The main focus would be Hookwolf, an unrepentant murderer that took a perverse pleasure in slaughter. To get him of the streets was the main goal, and because of that, Armsmaster would personally initiate the fight with him. He had a couple of nasty surprises hidden in his halberd for just that reason.

He saw them arrive as well, walking through the streets toward the point of battle. Hookwolf stood in front, balancing himself on four metal limbs, almost completely transformed already. To his side, just behind him, were his main allies, Cricket and Stormtiger. The animal-themed trio was anything but kid-friendly. Except maybe for Nazi-children.

Victor and Othala were there too, a deadly combo if there ever was one. The couple, and his analytical programs suggested that they were so in more than just as a combat team, could adapt to their opponent with Othala’s trump power, and steal the enemies capabilities with Victors skill leaching. Any tie against them was actually a loss because of that. Sure, the capabilities would slowly return, but Victor kept them, and not having the skill was rather problematic.

On the other hand, that was what had led him to finally create the autonomous driving program for his motorcycle.

Their team was filled out with the Boulder, a geokinetic that couldn’t stop talking about himself in the third-person and pretended he was a professional wrestler when he wasn’t kicking non-white puppies, and Botanica, who had powers that made trees and other plant-life an extension of his body, mostly using it as a brute-rating in some strange rendition of power-armour.

“Looks like things are about to kick off” Lady Photon said, stating exactly what was already obvious to everyone present.

Armsmaster nodded. “No Rune or Purity either, at least not right now. We’re going with plan B, does everyone have their targets?”

People nodded in agreement. It was a boon that they hadn’t brought any fliers, except for possibly Othala’s target, but her using her power for flight meant she couldn’t use it for something more dangerous.

This was the part where they waited, until the Empire and the Merchants were fully occupied with each other. At that point, they’d use their initiative to immediately get everyone into their best match-up. Lady Photon and Laserdream would blast whatever vehicles Squealer had brought to the fight, immediately taking away the possibility for escape from the Merchants. Brandish would take down Mush.

Velocity would attempt to take down Snot by surprise, covering his slimy exterior with the pieces of cloth that had been prepared around the battlefield. The cloth would glue to his slimy exterior, stopping him from doing anything else in the fight.

Miss Militia’s task would be to snipe down Flush, a large-scale shaker that created a weird analogue of a black hole, with some quick rubber bullets. Young Aegis, in the meantime, had offered to take down Skidmark with an aerial tackle.

On the other side of the confrontation, Shielder would start out by blocking of Othala, stopping her from using her Trump power. Flashbang would take down Cricket, using his power to counter her enhanced senses, and Manpower had proclaimed he wanted a 1on1 with Stormtiger.

Glory Girl, the newest cape among them, wanted to take down the Boulder. He’d had his reservations on that, but Photon Mom had trusted the girl’s instincts, and there were a few capes on back-up if things went wrong. Dauntless, then, would take down Victor, which should be easy for him. After all, Victor would have nothing to steal.

Botanica would’ve normally been a real problem; the self-regenerating power armour was rather annoying in an extended fight, but Kid Win’s latest gun, originally created to destroy debris on the battlefield, also turned out to work on living wood, but not human flesh. Without his wood, he’d be a slightly overweight fifty year old.

In the meantime, he’d be taking down Hookwolf. In a way, he looked forward to the fight, trading blows with a powerful opponent, with the safe knowledge that there were no civilians around to get hurt from collateral damage.

That left Assault and Battery ready for immediate back-ups, with Gallant and Triumph as a second layer.

The fight had started, Stormtiger blasting wind at the Merchants, and Victor throwing fireballs. Squealer’s large vehicle, the merchant capes hanging on to it, started rolling forward.

“Wait for it…” he said. They’d have to time it right, if one of the gangsters died while they were waiting, there would be consequences.

A minute went by, and he could see the tension building up around him, only a small camouflage barrier shielding them from the fight. “Vista, are you ready?”

The girl, youngest member of the wards, but experienced nonetheless, looked intensely at the battlefield for a few seconds before answering. “Yes”

“Then we strike… NOW!”

He dashed forward, and jumped, the combination of his power armour and Vista’s power allowing him to almost immediately reach Hookwolf, who was currently being launched backwards by one of Skidmark’s zones on the ground. He shifted his halberd into his new spear mode, and struck forward, impaling Hookwolf on it.

It didn’t work, at least, not in the conventional sense. Hookwolf’s changer form reshaped itself, and he recovered from the strike. But the physical damage was only a distraction. The spear-head was charged with an energy that magnetized whatever it struck. Hookwolf hadn’t noticed, at least not yet, and charged forward. A quick succession of strikes made him back off for a second, reshaping his torso to human form. He was getting more sluggish, had he noticed? Was that why he was shifting back?

“You’re a filthy little race traitor aren’t you?” The man said. Collin chose not to react to the frankly ridiculous accusation. Not only was the notion of race itself inconsistent, but to betray something implies previous loyalty.

He struck again, forcing Hookwolf back into his metal form, striking at the whirling blades. Then, Hookwolf went on a counterattack.

Blades whirled around, and it was everything he could do to block all the attacks. Hookwolf must’ve thought he was winning, but with every block, his body started getting more and more magnetized.

Eventually, the effect became noticeable. Individual pieces of metal started sticking together, or repelling each other.

Before he could finish the fight however, a large boulder came flying their way. Both of them dodged, creating distance between them.

“Huh, it seems like even your own people hate you.” He said, taunting the murderer.

It worked, and Hookwolf jumped upwards, planning to strike from above.

Quickly, Armsmaster flipped around the spear, and activated the net launcher in the bottom. The metal net launched upwards, and Hookwolf, flying through the air, couldn’t dodge it. It clung to him, being attracted by his now metallic body.

Armsmaster looked around, surveying the battle. Dauntless had taken down Victor, and decided to help Glory Girl, who was now lying on the ground next to the Boulder, having been tased by her ally.

Cricket had escaped somehow, as had Othala. The real problem was Stormtiger, who was holding back Manpower, Assault and Batter, as well as Shielder, who had obviously switched targets.

On the Merchant side, the battle seemed largely decided in their favour, although some of them had been able to get away.

Stormtiger was building up a serious amount of air pressure, one of Shielders barriers the only thing separating him from the Protectorate and New Wave capes.

“I suggest you surrender Stormtiger, you’re drastically outnumbered, and you’re no Lung.” He said, walking towards the cape.

“Surrender? Seems to me that it’s you guys who are afraid of me, not the other way around.”

“Don’t be stupid and put away that massive air pressure. Even if you manage to hurt, maim, or kill one of us, the rest of us would put you down or ensure you’re send straight into the birdcage.”

“Are you afraid of me Armsmaster, it’s not often I see you threatening death on your enemies. Come on, it’s just a little pressurized air”.’

It was anything but a little bit of pressure. Behind Shielders force fields, now joined by those of Lady Photon and Laserdream, the air had become thick with the pressure, it looked like Stormtiger had difficulty breathing.

“Open up a small hole at the top. He’s somehow creating extra pressure out of nowhere. He probably has generation powers as well as aerokinesis.” He whispered to the teenage Shielder beside him. Something wasn’t quite right, it looked like the Empire cape was stalling for time, but it wasn’t likely that he still had reinforcements incoming.

He turned around, and saw his reinforced iron net lying on the ground, shred to pieces. Had Hookwolf somehow been able to escape through the magnetism? Or had Othala or another of the escapees done something?

At that moment, Stormtiger blasted his air downwards, the force driving him upwards through the gap that Shielder had made.

“Well, I guess he has mover capabilities too.” Collin said, barely concealing his displeasure at the order of events. Still, they’d captured three Empire capes and three of the powered Merchants.

“Don’t bother chasing Stormtiger, we need to secure the prisoners we have.” He said to no-one in particular.

A call came into his armour, one of the PRT teams had found a half-dazed Cricket and managed to foam her down. That was four Empire capes down.

*** Armsmaster ***

The defeated villains had been loaded up into the PRT vans and were being taken to the Protectorate headquarters until their trial. In the meantime, the press had arrived, looking for information on the cities’ latest parahuman altercation. He was about to walk over and explain what had happened, when he saw that Dauntless was already doing so.

“So Dauntless, can you tell us what happened here?”

“Well Rosette, there was a big fight between the Empire Eighty-Eight, the local neo-nazi’s, and the Archer’s bridge Merchants, a cape-led drug-selling ring. We were able to catch them off guard, and take them down. It’s all in a days work you know.”

“Still, seven capes arrested in one day, that must have been difficult!”

“Not really, They were distracted, it was actually rather easy to take them down.”

It was always the same, Collin thought. It’d taken tight cooperation between the PRT, the police, the mayor’s office and the Dockworkers to make this happen. They’d had a prepared PR statement, stressing the value of co-operation and communication between the people of the city. Dauntless, however, had decided that he could do everything on his own because he was friends with the journalist interviewing him. They’d arrested seven capes and thirty gang members, the idea that it was no big deal was preposterous.

But it probably wouldn’t help his cause to get angry in front of the camera. He looked back at his wards. Kid Win was happy, his gun had made quick work of the wood-based cape. Velocity, about to graduate to the Protectorate, was rather grossed out by all the snot. Vista seemed to be happy about her contribution, getting everyone to their target, Gallant and Triumph looked bored, which, in the big scheme of thing, was a good thing.

Tonight, instead of tinkering, he’d relax a little. Paperwork could wait. It was time for pizza, ice-cream with cookie-dough, and the original StarTrek series. Dragon had told him about the series, and he had to admit, it was rather engrossing, even though the special effects were incredibly bad and the tinkering made absolutely no sense. Reversing polarities did not work that way.

The evening was starting, and a thin carpet of snow covered the city. Collin made his way to his car, where he changed out of his armour behind the tinted glass, and drove home. Today, his work was over, he would be able to relax, and there’d be no more surprises.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 1.2  
Darkness had fallen upon Brockton Bay. Not in the metaphorical sense, but literally. Metaphorically, it probably wouldn’t be dark for a couple of days. After this large strike against the Merchants and the Empire, everything would be silent for a few days, while the remainders of those gangs planned a break-out, and the others tried to get the lay of the land.

In a week, Lung might be trying something, but for now, it was expected that the Asian gang leader would wait.

Colin parked his car in his personal parking spot, parking it in backwards, so that he could quickly leave if he got a call. The amber light of the streetlamps covered the streets in a warm glow, accentuated by slowly falling snowflakes. Doubly locking his trunk, where he had stored one of his suits of armour, he made his way towards his home. A two-storey luxury apartment on the bottom floor of a larger building, it’s front door faced the street, with a small porch raised slightly above street level.

He didn’t spend much time there. After all, it was difficult to justify taking time off when he could be out there, fighting the gangs, working in his workshop, studying his enemies and filling out paperwork. But at times like this, he needed some time off. An evening on the couch with a good TV-show or movie. Tomorrow, he could fill out the paperwork and prepare for the transportation of their new prisoners.

Walking towards his front door, he noticed something. A young girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, was sitting on his porch. Her shoulder-length blonde hair had snowflakes in it, and it looked like she’d been sitting there for a while. Her clothes were raggedy, Not to the degree that you usually saw in homeless children, but it looked like she hadn’t changed clothes in a few days.

Her jeans were ripped, although he wasn’t quite sure whether that was damage or simply a case of youth fashion, he was pretty sure some of the wards wore similar stuff. Her shoes were soaked, she probably hadn’t taken them off in a while, putting them out to dry. She was wearing a ski-jacket, that seemed to be warm, but was a bit too small for her already small frame.

What caught his attention however, was the scarf. It was old and fraying, but there was a black and blue checkered pattern to it. The colours were faded, but he recognized it. It was something he’d given to his girlfriend, fifteen years ago, before they'd broken up.

Combined with the age of the girl, there was really only one conclusion he could make.

Someone was trying to get to him by pretending to be his daughter, from a relationship that had ended after three weeks, fifteen years ago.

He squatted before the girl. She hadn’t noticed him yet, and at this angle, he could observe her face. Her eyes were wet with tears, but that wasn’t the worrying part. The skin around her eye was black and blue, and her cheek had scratch-marks.

Either someone was trying to really play on his emotions, or this wasn’t some stranger or changer.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked.

She looked up towards him, sniffling, cleaning up her nose a bit.

“No…” the girl replied. Still crying and looking away.

She looked depressed and exhausted, waiting for something. For him, probably.

“Can I help you with something?”

One of her arms went towards her face, and wiped it slightly clean. Her hand looked cold. Not frostbitten, but not in a great condition either.

“I… uhm…”

She didn’t finish her sentence, started sobbing again.

Colin searched his memory. What did he have inside that could be compromising? There were some research notes, but none of the classified stuff, it could probably be passed off as a general interest in capes. There were several guns hidden throughout the house, behind the Fridge, below his desk, those sorts of places, but they were locked to his biological patterns. They wouldn’t fire unless they detected his fingerprint and a pulse. There wasn’t any classified paperwork either, he was carefull to leave that at work, gave him an excuse not to work on it. The only problem would be a couple of work pictures of his civilian identity, from the ridiculous teambuilding exercises they sometimes had to do. Trivia quizzes against Hannah were absolutely impossible.

He reached out with his arm, placing it on the girls shoulder. She shrunk back a bit, either afraid of his touch, or of touching in general.

“Hey, what’s your name?” he asked, fearing he already knew the answer, at least for her last name.

“...Sely…” she answered.

“Sely, what’s your mother’s name?”

She looked at him again, her eyes looking like those of a deer caught in the headlights of a truck. “Annabelle… Annabelle Pierce.”

Well, that sealed the deal. His old girlfriend Annabelle had apparently gotten pregnant, and forgotten to tell him.

Three options then. This was some sort of trap, it wasn’t a trap and Sely knew who he really was, or it wasn’t a trap and Sely didn’t know his secret identity.

And, he corrected himself, there was the possibility that she was his daughter, and it was also a trap. But that way lay madness and endless paranoia.

He stood up, and grabbed his keys from his pocket. The girl, Sely, looked up, really looking at him this time. A look of understanding came over her.

“Come on Sely, let’s get you into something warmer.”

The girl stood up, and they walked into the house. The girl was still sniffling, a combination of a cold and her emotional state.

It probably looked weird, a man ushering a young girl he didn’t know into his home, but he had his reasons.

“…dad?” Sely said, almost in a whisper.

If this was a trick, he was going to stab someone. If it wasn’t… he was probably still going to punch someone. Annabelle, most likely. Some people thought punching woman was wrong, but Colin had worked under Alexandria, he knew that gender had very little to do with that kind of stuff.

He ushered her towards the bathroom. “Come on, lets get you a nice warm shower.”

She nodded, a look of confusion on her face.

Opening the bathroom door, he spoke to her again. “I’ll go get you something warm and dry to wear okay, you get yourself cleaned up.”

He closed the door behind him. Looking at a fourteen year old while she was showering was where he drew the line. Instead, he grabbed his phone, and started walking towards his bedroom, seeing whether he had some clothes she could wear.

In the meantime, he thought about who to call. On one hand, protocol demanded that he inform the PRT director in a possible master/stranger situation like this. However, if it wasn’t a master/stranger situation. He shuddered at the thought of sending a young girl, his daughter, through master/stranger protocols after whatever had happened to her to reduce her to this state.

He could also call Dragon instead. On one hand, she’d be able to help him figure out whether or not this was a master/stranger protocol. On the other hand, if this girl was actually his daughter, she’d know what to do, because he had absolutely no idea what to do.

He started calling her, and on the third tone, she answered the call.

“Good evening Colin.” Her voice came over the line, crisp and clear, slightly accented.

“Good evening Dragon.” He replied.

She obviously heard something was wrong by the tone of his voice, she was good at that kind of thing. “Colin? What happened, did something go wrong with the afternoon’s operation?”

“Beyond Dauntless’s usual bullshit? Not this afternoon.”

“Oh…” her voice went out. “What happened?”

“I’m not quite certain, but, can you run a check on someone called Annabelle Pierce?”

“Any reason? I mean, you know we’re not supposed to just run check on people right?.”

“Just… trust me all right.”

Dragon was silent, and Colin took the time to grab some clothes from his closet that the girl could possibly wear. They’d be far too large, but it’d have to do for now. Eventually, he settled on an old sweater from the two years he’d spend in college with Chev, and some sweatpants.

After about a minute, Dragon’s voice returned to the phone line.

“Are you sure she’s yours?” she asked.

“Pretty sure, given the match in facial features and the timeframe.”

“Wow… that’s... heavy.” She replied.

“She… She showed up on my doorstep today, and it looks like someone abused her. She’s taking a shower right now and… I just don’t know what to do.”

Dragon replied faster than he expected. “I’ll investigate it. In the meantime, just, keep her safe, and if you’re worried about her wounds, try calling Panacea. I know she doesn’t do house calls, but she’ll probably make an exception when you tell her about the situation.”

“I… Okay.” He replied.

He went downstairs with the prepared clothes, and heard that the showerhead was still on. He set down the bundle, and walked towards his small kitchen to make some coffee.

As he was about to pour some into a second cup, Colin realized he had absolutely no idea whether or not fourteen year old girls drank coffee.

Vista, the twelve year old ward, drank coffee, but he was quite sure that that didn’t mean other young girls did. Vista wasn’t your average kid.

Looking around in his kitchen, he realized that he didn’t actually have all that much that was appropriate for a fourteen-year old. There was some high-quality beer. Then he had a bottle of scotch he’d been saving up for, well, a situation just like this, after a big fight.

Not to mention the special stash. The post-endbringer stuff. The less said about that, the better.

H had some energy drinks… kids liked energy drinks, right? Except, they were about as bad as alcohol, giving it to her probably wasn’t a very good idea.

Did he have something he could homebrew in a few minutes? He had a chocolate bar, some creamer he could repurpose… He could probably figure something out if he had a proper… His eyes moved to his coffee machine. It already had quite a few functions, for seven different types of coffee. No-one would notice if he added some more possibilities, and it should be a quick job. His hand went for his pocket, towards his trusty pocket-knife. Although, to compare it to that Swiss stuff was actually rather insulting.

*** Sely ***

The water wasn’t just warm, it was hot. My nose felt like it was burning away, even though it wasn’t that high a temperature… It was probably because I’d been outside for so long…

Maybe… maybe running away from home to find my real dad hadn’t been a very good idea… I’m not quite sure what I’d expected. I’d never met the man, hadn’t seen him outside a picture somewhere in an old photo-album of my mom’s. Mom never really talked about him anyway.

His bathroom was nice though. White tiles and rich wooden furniture. One of those showerheads that was like twice as big as your head. It was amazing, much better than the small showerhead we had back at home. I reached up, trying to adjust it, but the movement made my ribs start hurting again. I decided to explore the rest of the shower instead.

There were only three different bottles of shampoo and shit. A big difference in comparison to all the shit mom had. Going over them, the first turned out to just be normal shampoo. The second was a bottle of bodywash, with a picture of Che-something on the front. You know, the famous knight cape guy that no-one could pronounce the name of, not the South-American dictator that was somehow also on t-shirts. The last bottle was filled with what was , according to the bottle at least, beard-shampoo. I had no idea it existed, and I think it had been some sort of gag-gift. As in a joke, not as in a gift that smelled really bad. Although it probably also smelled really bad. I removed the cap for a second, and confirmed that the joke did indeed work both ways.

More interesting was the buttons and handles. I’d quickly identified temperature and intensity when I’d started showering, but there was some other stuff.

I pulled one of the levers, not bothering to figure out what it did beforehand. As it turned out, it locked the bottom half of the shower door in place, and stopped the water from washing away, turning the shower into an impromptu bath-tub. It was like I was in a supervillains secret bathroom.

Was my dad a supervillain? Probably not, he had a beard, not a moustache, and the beard wasn’t a goatee either. I was probably save.

Deciding to take advantage of the newly discovered bathtub functionality, I laid down, resting my head on the side of the tub. My body had finally adjusted to the warmth of the water, and I watched the mist rise from the warm water in the tub. My ribs were still hurting, like they had for three days now, and I was still afraid to touch my eye. I knew it’d be sort of all-right, I could still see out of it, I just didn’t want to touch it cause it’d probably hurt.

The real problem was the ridiculous amount of snot flowing out of my nose now that it was being steamed out. It’d slowed down, but it was still happening. I’d gotten a cold in the days on the road, it’d probably be okay in a few days... Not that I had any idea where I’d be in a few days.

Lying back, I closed my eyes. After a while, the shower stopped working, just about when the tub was almost full. That was kinda cool… I opened my eyes to look at the ceiling for a bit. It was a nice clean white, and I got lost in the mist from the hot water getting sucked into the fan, slowly drifting away.

*** Armsmaster ***

“Carol speaking, Dallon household.” Brandish’s voice came over the phone.

“Evening Brandish, it’s me, Armsmaster.” He replied.

He heard a sigh coming over the phone. “ it’s 10 P.M. Armsmaster, this better be important. Someone break out already? Again?”

“The thing with Oni Lee was not… Look, it’s… it’s not Brandish I need, it’s Carol.”

The line was silent for a few seconds. “Is it something legal?”

“No, it’s… although maybe there’s…” he replied.

“Look, you’re obviously distraught. Just tell me what happened.”

He gasped for air, readying himself.

“When I got home… there was a fourteen year old girl on my doorstep, claiming she’s my daughter… I… her story checks out, its just… I have absolutely no idea what to do, and…”

“And Sarah and I are some of the few actual parents you know.”

“Yeah…”

“First of all… Do you know why she suddenly showed up?”

“Well, it probably has something to do with the bruises…”

He heard another sigh over the phone-line, although he was pretty certain that this one wasn’t aimed at him.

“How is she right now?”

“I just checked before I called and… she fell asleep in the bathtub… you know…”

“I can see how that’d be a problem… I’ll go get Amy and drop by for a bit. In the meantime, you should probably try go get into contact with her mother and figure out what happened.”

It was… reassuring, knowing there was someone who knew what to do. Dragon had been helpful, but it wasn’t like she had any experience with children either.

“Okay. I’ll send you my address via text. And Carol?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

Collin put down the phone. That was one conversation done with. Perhaps it had been slightly manipulative, calling Carol instead of Sarah, sort of hoping she’d bring Panacea along. But then again, he also needed some legal advice about what the hell to do about suddenly having a daughter.

Now for the second phone call of the night. He opened up his laptop, it was time to catch up with Annabelle.

*** Annabelle ***

Why was David such a fucking asshole? The fucking douchebag had been cheating on her, with his stupid fucking face and his stupid fucking car and his stupid fucking job. Somehow, she hadn’t been enough for him, somehow, he had to go through every stripper in town, plus quite a few from different towns.

She looked in the mirror. Was she ugly? Her hand went through her luxurious golden hair, still in top condition. She moved a bit, showing of her body to herself. Yes, she still had it.

It had been four days since Sely had shown her the pictures. three days since she’d confronted David. The last two days, she’d spend crying, devastated. David hated her now, and she hated David. Why couldn’t she ever find a stable relationship? Someone who could stick by her, love her.

Perhaps it was time to go out again, try to find someone to fill up the hole in her heart. It had been three lonely days.

She went for her closet, trying to pick out a dress. Sure, she was in her thirties, but that wasn’t too old for a miniskirt and a top. She could still pull it off. Now, where to go to catch someone?

Her phone rang. She wondered who it could be. David? Desperately wanting her back? Probably. Or had Sely gotten in some trouble again? That girl was never up to anything good, stalking her mother’s boyfriends and taking pictures, no wonder David had gotten angry at her, the filthy adulterer.

She checked the display, and didn’t recognize the number. It was a different area code, an out of state caller? She accepted the call.

“Hello? Annabelle here.”

“Annabelle, it’s been a while.”

She recognized the voice, although she wasn’t quite sure where from. Someone in town? Someone from her old high school class or something? It’d been quite a while since she’d last heard this voice, she was sure of it.

“Been a while indeed” she said, letting out a semi-suppressed giggle, the voice was nice, smooth, strong. Like that of someone who spoke with authority. Who was it? she racked her brain. She’d dated a big-shot lawyer once, and a rockstar, but this didn’t sound like the voice of a rockstar.

“It’s me, Colin.”

Then she knew where she knew the voice from. Colin Wallis, an old flame, from back when she was what, nineteen or something? They’d met on that cruise she’d won tickets to.

And where her other boyfriends had been football players and college students, Colin had been a superhero, Armsmaster.

And, of course, Sely’s father. Her little girl had his eyes. It was nice, reminiscing about old lovers. Sure, there had been problems in their relationship, Colin tended to simply drown himself in work, meaning she’d have to go out to town on her own, but he was a good guy, even if he had gotten rather angry at her for a small indiscretion.

Before she could answer, Colin continued speaking.

“Annabelle, is there something you forgot to tell me.”

She was silent for a second. Before remembering. She hadn’t actually ever told the guy about Sely. The break-up had been so bad…

Before she could reply, he spoke again.

“Because there’s an abused fourteen year old in my house right now you bitch!”

“Wait, Sely’s in Brockton Bay?” she replied. Every now and then, she’d kept up with his, Armsmasters, career. Roughly whenever Sely had started complaining about wanting a real dad. She could be so ungrateful. She hadn’t told her her father was a superhero, simply saying he lived on the other side of the country had usually been enough to get her to drop the topic.

“Yes, so you can call off the fucking search and explain to me what happened.”

“I… call of the search?”

“Yes! Because quite obviously, when your daughter is missing for several days, you start fucking looking for her!” He was shouting now, and she had to hold the horn of the phone away from her ear. “And then, could you please fucking explain to me why she has a black eye?”

“Look, the last couple of days have been really stressful, what with David being such an asshole, and I just didn’t have the time to-”

He interrupted her “David? Who the fuck is David? Is he responsible for Sely getting hurt?”

“I, look, he’s gone now okay, he won’t be around anymore.”

“Really? You dump in and you think everything is suddenly okay? Are you daft?”

“Look, I don’t think you have any business asking stuff about my love life.”

“Well, maybe you should’ve thought about that before not telling me I have a teenage daughter!”

The sentence was punctuated by the sound of a the phone smashing against the wall, and dropping to the floor.

All she could do was wonder how Sely had gotten all the way to Brockton Bay from Wyoming. She hadn’t been gone for that long, right?


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 1.3

“Well, I’m afraid it’s not as easy as it may seem. Family law may not be my specialty, but I can tell you that much.” Carol said. Right now, she didn’t look all that much like a lawyer, instead wearing yoga pants and a slightly too large hoodie. It made sense. Not only had she been wearing her costume before getting home, it also mean that people wouldn’t automatically notice who she was. Carol Dallon was not known for being shabbily dressed.

“But she lied to me, let… this…. Happen to her daughter, and didn’t even notice she’d been on the road for what must have been several days. This is ridiculous!”

Carol sighed.

“Look, I know that, and you know that, but you need to look at it from the perspective of the court. She’s lived with her mother all her life, and if what she told you is correct, the actual abuser has been removed from the situation.”

“But she’s a conniving lying bitch!”

“Yes, and she hasn’t ever told you about your daughter either. Which means that there’s no real connection between the two of you besides the genetic one. Plus, they don’t have a good reason to believe you will be a better parent.”

“Wouldn’t the protectorate be able to help there? Show them that I’m reliable?”

“Possibly, but so would a fake job the PRT can provide. And remember, being a hero might not actually be a selling point. The hours would make you unreliable, you have a high risk of getting hurt on the job, especially factoring in that you’re the type of guy to show up to every endbringer fight he can. Plus, even though its not something that happens often, there’s still the risk of something happening to her because someone went after your civilian identity.”

There was nothing that Colin hated more than feeling helpless, unable to do anything. He hated this. Hated everything involved with it. It reminded him of his own parents. Always working, never having the time to talk to him, to just spend some time. Their divorce had been… amicable, in a way. They just didn’t care about each other enough to actually get angry.

In a way, he had felt insulted that his parents hadn’t fought over him.

And now, it looked like he’d have to do the same thing to his own daughter, a girl he hadn’t even known existed until earlier today, and he’d already failed her.

Carol interrupted his thought process.

“It’s not all bad Colin. There’s quite a few options, it’s just that her staying her is not quite in the cards right now.”

“So… what are the options?” he asked, his head still resting in his hands. He should’ve worked more on that legal simulation program he’d tried to build once, when trying to get out of a speeding ticket.

“Most important is probably visitation rights, and some sort of deal to get time with her during school vacations. It might not seem like much, but it means getting to know her better, and more importantly, her getting to know you. Then, in addition to that, we try to get more supervision on her mother, figure out whether or not this was an isolated incident, find out how Sely’s doing in school, see if she’s financially stable, that sort of thing. The real problem is that you’re pretty much stuck here with your job, and she’s not going to move, so a 50/50 split is never going to be accepted by a judge. So we improve your relationship with Sely, prove that you can provide stability and safety, and then pounce the moment her mother makes another mistake.”

“That seems kind of… predatory.” He replied. It was weird, hearing her talk about custody battles in the same way he’d heard her talk about how to take down people like Lung or Kaiser.

“It is, but it’s the best case scenario for you and your little girl.”

“Dare I ask?”

“Well, there’s another way for you to quite easily get custody. The problem is that it involved something bad happening to her.”

“A trigger event…”

“Exactly. None of us wants it to happen, but a trigger event is the one thing where you being a Protectorate cape actually helps in your favour, a lot. Does Westlake even have a Protectorate office?”

“A small one, if I remember correctly, one or two capes and a single civilian.”

“In other words, were that to happen, bringing her to Brockton Bay where her father will be able to watch over her would be the optimal solution.”

“Except for the fact that she’d first have to trigger.”

“She’s second generation, so it’s more likely than not and it wouldn’t necessarily be all that bad, but it’s still not a happy thought.”

“So, what about right now? What do I do?”

“Right now, we wait until Amy’s done helping her out and documenting the injuries for the police report. Then, let her catch some sleep. Problem is, it’s the middle of the week, so she has to go to school. You can probably smuggle in half a day or so, but it’d be a good idea to put her on the plane sometime tomorrow.”

“And bring her back to Annabelle.”

“To her mother and her home, yes, as much as that might mean right now.”

*** Panacea ***

“So, how do you know my dad anyway?” The girl, Sely, asked.

It was hard, trying to figure out an excuse while getting a complete diagnosis and healing the girl.

“Ehhm, my mom knows him from work”

Smooth Amy, smooth. No way she’ll figure out her father’s secret identity this way.

“Oh, okay… So, what are you doing?”

“Right now? Healing you.”

“Yeah, but, like, how? I mean, I felt the stuff with my eye but I don’t feel what you’re doing now.”

“It’s… a bit more complicated than that. Your eye was already healing, and bruises aren’t that hard to fix, it’s a matter of cleaning up. For the rest of your body, I have to actually figure out exactly what’s wrong before healing it.”

What she hadn’t said, at least not yet, was that she wasn’t just figuring out what’s wrong in order to heal it.

There wasn’t all that much wrong with the girl. No evidence of drugs or alcohol in her system. There was, however, some evidence of malnutrition. A lack of vitamins at some stages in her life. Nothing that would create any permanent problems. So enough food, but not healthy enough. Probably quite a bit of junkfood and microwave meals in her history.

Then there was the damage from the beating she’d sustained, roughly two or three days ago. A black eye, two broken ribs, a few of her teeth had come slightly loose. Several bruises over her torso, microfractures and another bruise on her left leg.

The only positive part of this was that she could detect the girl’s DNA as well, and it matched Armsmaster’s DNA. And of course the fact that she could heal her.

“Oh, yeah, feeling it now.” Sely said. She was wearing some of her old clothes that she didn’t fit anymore. Stuff from when she’d been fourteen. Her clothes had been completely soaked, and it had been a better alternative to the stuff Armsmaster had laid out.

“So, you can like, heal anything right?” The girl asked.

“Yeah…”

“Including trees?”

“Trees? Why would I heal trees?”

“Because, you know, what if they get sick?”

“I guess I could, but-“

“So, like, if a squirrel had a nest in the tree, like, if it was hollow, would you heal it closed?

“I don’t think that really happens outside of cartoons.”

“Yeah but, what if?”

“I’d think I’d put a squirrel above a tree…”

“You’re a telekinetic too?”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I meant by that.”

Well, at least his daughter wasn’t as dull as he was, still, why would anyone, except a crazy Nazi, heal trees?

“I cwan fwheel whou in mha mwhouth” Sely said.

“Yes, and it’d be a lot easier if you stopped trying to speak while I’m working.”

“Chwan whou wheel wobotz?”

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t just say that.”

“Cause, like, in most games, you can just heal robots with normal healing stuff.”

“In most games, you respawn after dying.”

“Good point…”

“Well, I’m just about done.” She said, standing up.

“Okay” Sely replied, letting out a yawn. “But I’m still tired.”

“Sleep’s in the brain, I don’t do brains.”

“S’that why you don’t do trees?”

“I… How does that even compute?”

“Because, like, trees don’t have separate brains, so maybe like their entire body is a brain?”

“You know what… Sure, that’s why I don’t do trees.”

*** Sely ***

When I woke up, it took a while to figure out where I was.

Right, Brockton Bay, my dad’s home.

Yesterday had been… weird.

First of all, it had turned out that he wasn’t home. Which, you know, flaw in my plan.

Then, it had started snowing more and more.

Then, dad had come home.

Colin… I still wasn’t quite sure what to think about him. He was a bit weird, but, better than mom.

And then that lawyer woman and her daughter, who was apparently a cape without a secret identity, which was apparently a thing here, had shown up. The woman, Carol, had been a lawyer that knew my dad from work. I wasn’t quite sure what my dad did, but it was probably important if he knew lawyers. Plus, his home was pretty fancy.

“Are you awake yet?” someone asked. I properly opened my eyes, and saw I was lying on the couch under a nice warm blanket.

“No” I answered. The blanket was way too comfortable to wake up.

I heard dad walking, eventually stopping somewhere near my feet. He sat down, something in his hands.

“Well, if you’re still sleeping, I’ll have to eat these pancakes all on my own.”

I smelled, not noticing a real pancake odour. Then, sat up a bit, and noticed that they looked like pre-baked store-bought ones. Not really pancakes. Blegh.

“What’s gonna happen now?” I asked.

Ever since I’d decided to go hallway across the country, I hadn’t really thought ahead. Going to find dad had been the goal, not figuring out a life plan.

He was silent for a bit, and looked at the ground in front of him instead of at me.

“I… had another talk with your mother. The guy that… you know… he’s gone, and there’s a warrant out for him. From what she tells me, he’s probably already left the state. As for the rest… she wanted me to send you back as quickly as possible, or she’d report me for kidnapping you.”

I.. what? Dad kidnapping me? That didn’t even make sense. Which, you know, meant it’d fit my mom…

“Oh…”

“So I’m asking a friend of Carol, the woman that was here yesterday, to help me file a custody case”

“… Are you and mom going to get into a fight?”

He sighed. “I hope not, but, that’s really up to her, so, probably yes…”

I wondered… was mom going to fight dad for me? I wasn’t quite sure, but…

“…okay… So…”

“I got you a ticket for a flight back to Wyoming, You’ll have to change flights in Denver, but the people from the airport will help with that.”

Fuck…

I’d… expected it. Couldn’t be this easy, but…

Fuck…

After a few seconds, he put his hand on my leg, or rather, on top of the part of the blanket that was covering my leg.

“Hey, don’t get too depressed now. I still have fourteen years of birthday presents to make up for.”

A small smile touched my lips… maybe today wouldn’t be that bad…

*** Gadget ***

Today had been bad.

That was everything I could think about, soaring above the countryside.

It had started… okay. Dad had gotten me a laptop and a new phone, but when we were getting lunch, he’d gotten a call from work. Apparently, something had happened that meant he had to leave right away.

He’d given me some cash to continue shopping, but… there wasn’t really anything I couldn’t already get in other ways.

When he was done at work, it had been about time to go to the airport, because there was an increased security line. Some neo-Nazis had escaped from prison, and they were afraid some of them would try to escape the city. Of course, they had no idea who the Nazis actually were, so they just interrogated everyone for ten to fifteen minutes.

And, because apparently they had a little Nazi girl, I was included in the interrogations.

Fucking assholes asking whether or not I hated people who weren’t me, of course I didn’t, why would I give a shit about them one way or another? I didn’t even know anyone in the city except for my dad.

And then, in addition to everything else, airplane food. Some sort of meat-like substance had gone from my plate straight into the little garbage can.

I looked out of the window. Below me, small lights glowed, showing civilisation. Every single one of those lights was a home, or a streetlight, or whatever… I guess it wasn’t as poetic as I thought it’d be when I started on that…

On the other side, there was the sky, and a moonless night. It was filled with stars, each a thousand years away… I think. I was pretty sure I could see a satellite moving through the night sky, or was it an endbringer?

In a couple of hours, we’d arrive in Denver… then, a smaller plane back to Westlake…

And then I’d be back where I was four days ago. Stuck at home with mom, being selectively ignored or smothered. No-one would take me seriously… not even my dad.

There were a lot of stars out there though… up above me, to the sides, below me.

And there were these things… they were… big, and weird. It was like they were moving in a direction other than the normal ones every now and then. They, we, I, we were talking. Not talking, but, communicating. There was a distant orb, floating around a star, and we were talking about something. But now we like me and someone else, but more like, something which I was a part of.

It was beautiful in some sort of weird way, like something was intended to happen. And the stars…

“Do you want some tomato juice?” the Stewardess, but like, a man, would that be a Steward? Asked. I was pretty sure it wouldn’t be a Steward. Stewards were something from fantasy novels and shit, not airplanes. So it was probably something else.

Wait, when had I fallen asleep? And, hadn’t I been dreaming? I couldn’t really remember the dream, but it’d been something big and important.

“Uh-huh…” I replied, sitting up again.

Mister Stewardess handed me the cup of juice. “Here you go little miss!”

This dude was way too happy.

I grabbed the cup, feeling the smooth cardboard-like substance under my fingers. It felt weird.

I took a sip, a big one, more of a gulp really. I was kind of thirsty. Then, when the glass was half-empty, or was that half-full? It started slipping from my fingers. I moved my hands, trying to grab it, but it fell… through my fingers? No, it wasn’t falling down it was…

Where the fuck was the place where the cup had gone? I could feel it, the cardboard, the layer on the inside to keep the cardboard from getting soggy, the three different dyes they used for the airline logo…

And then the juice hit my legs. Whatever had happened to the cardboard cup, it hadn’t happened to the tomato juice.

Almost immediately, the Stewardessir came by and started making a fuss, calling for another one of the airline people to go and bring more towels. It was weird, paper towels just weren’t all that good at absorbing liquids from clothing, and it wouldn’t even clean the clothes either. Some sort of sponge-like material would probably work better, give it a few adaptive sensors that made sure it wouldn’t try and absorb the fibres of my clothes. It probably wouldn’t work on spaghetti, but stuff like tomato juice would work. Except maybe it’d be hard to separate intended colouring from stuff that spilled on my clothes, and…

Wait, what was I thinking about? Why would I be making…

Weird… really really weird.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 1.4  
So if I removed the wires from the charger, I could use those to connect the camera and the drone, and then I could use the USB plug to connect it to my laptop. But, how’d I charge it then? Or should I just hope that the battery didn’t run out? The stuff only existed for a few hours when I absorbed it, so that might work…

Now, instead, I could repurpose some of those wires… And if I plugged them directly into the photo-sensitive part of the camera… This could actually work. I’d need to figure out how to three-dimensionalize the data, but that was easily done with any computer.

The problem was, I needed proper tools before I could get started on good tech, but I needed tech to get my hands on some tools. My bed just wasn’t a proper worktable.

“Sely!” a shout came from downstairs.

Another month, another asshole.

I threw the blanket on top of my project. I didn’t want anyone to see it. Then, I made my way down. Henry wanted to bitch about something again, better to get it over with now.

When I was halfway down the stairs, mom chimed in.

“Sely get down here right now!”

I opened the door to the living room, and saw them sitting on the couch together, being all lovey-dovey.

“What? I was busy!” I replied.

“Sely, your mother and I just got a call from your school.”

“What? You’re finally gonna learn to read and write?”

“No I don’t need to learn how to read and write Sely!” he shouted, his spit flying from his mouth in an arc. Mom gave him a hug, probably because she loved it when he was being an asshole or something. He seemed to calm down a bit from it.

“Coulda fooled me…” I mumbled under my breath.

“See, this is exactly the type of behaviour that gets you in trouble at school!” he shouted back.

“See, this is exactly the type of behaviour that gets you in trouble at school.” I replied.

“Sely!” mother called out.

“What? I’m just saying, if he wants to finally finish high-school, he’s gotta learn not to shout for no reason.”

“That’s it young lady, to your room!” she replied.

Good, that meant I could work on my stuff again. I wanted to say it was just as I planned, but, it wasn’t. Henry’d probably already forgotten what he even wanted to ask. The idiot. I walked back upstairs, ignoring mom, who yelled something about dinner. Instead, I could finish my drone. Or, rather, finish modifying my neighbour’s drone. Whatever, it’s not like he really missed it anyway.

The drone had been my biggest project so far. I had two other tools ready and made, but both of them were much smaller. They’d been easier to make too, for some reason. I wasn’t sure how that worked. When making them, the ideas just flowed, I’d quickly figured out what I was doing, how stuff would work. Now, I had to try and mix and match to get the damn thing below the maximum weight, and keep it flying stable.

I’d grabbed some stuff from the router to try and get real-time feedback, but it turned out that the modifications I’d done to get infrared wall-vision were interfering with the antenna somehow.

So now I’d have to use either a cable or mobile internet, until I took the time to fix the thing again.

On the other hand, having no good internet access meant mom was spending most of her time at Henry’s place, so bonus there.

It took me a couple of hours, but at the end of the night, I was relatively sure that my scouting drone was done.

It was a work of art. Not, like, classical renaissance painting art, mind you. It was more in the category of upside down urinal art. But it worked, and that was what was important.

Even better, I’d found a way around my big restriction. Rather than having to program it once and then being stuck in that state, It had to be connected to a computer through a USB-port, after which point I could put a program on it, telling it where to scout.

You see, I’d done some research online. There’s this site called Parahumans Online, which made sense, because it was about Parahumans, that is, people with magic powers, and it was a website, meaning it was online.

Now, powers were classified in different categories. There was one for shooting people with stuff like laser-eyes, there was one for flying or being really fast, stuff like that. Mostly, I thought that stuff was rather useless. If someone had lightning powers, he should be described as “lightning powers”, not something bullshit like barbarian 3 explosion 2 shaking 4. It’d be way more logical to just make it like a lightning category.

But, the moment I informed people of that, like a million angry nerds suddenly posted that I was stupid. And then someone pretending to be people’s mom smashed them with a hammer.

The one useful thing I found was what tinkers were. Tinkers, unlike the other categories, made sense. A tinker had the magical ability to make awesome technology, even though he or she never learned how to.

Me, I was a tinker. Sure, other people had devices for going through locked doors, but those broke the door, or took time. Me, I had my unlocker, just a tiny metal tube that scanned a lock and replicated the key, immediately opening it. Take that hypothetical lightning wizards.

But, the thing was, everyone said tinkers were always just tinkers. If a tinker had a shooting power, that was because he had a gun.

Which was a silly idea, because then every cop would be a cape, because guns.

So, I’d figured out that I was extra awesome. I wasn’t just a tinker, I also had a power that wasn’t on the list. At least, I didn’t see it.

I could make stuff disappear, and then make it reappear. Like the cup of juice from the airplane.

Except not.

The disappearing part was correct. I could grab something, use my power, and it’d disappear into thin air.

Well, not quite. At least, I hadn’t checked. It’d disappear, but I had no idea whether it turned into air or not. Maybe I could go swimming underwater. Just make stuff disappear to get air. Maybe I would drown. Probably the second with my luck.

So, after it disappeared, I could still feel it. Like there was this room somewhere in my head, filled with, well, whatever I had absorbed. But, It wasn’t really a storage room or something. It was more like a tiny factory, creating whatever I’d absorbed, exactly in the way it was when I absorbed it.

Like the new phone dad had gotten me. In a moment of stupidity, I’d absorbed it. Now, every time I called it forth. The battery was at exactly 73%, I had one new message, and the Facebook app was in the middle of updating.

And it wasn’t like I could just reabsorb an updated phone either. That was the entire problem. My power didn’t work on the stuff I’d called forth. It was just there, and then, after a few hours, it’d disappear again.

The only good part was that my little mind-factory slowly created more of them, which meant I had multiples. Right now, for example, I could just grab my phone three times. The little cardboard cup I could get seven of.

So, my plan was to use one power to create stuff, and then use my magical mind-factory to use it. The only problem being that I couldn’t change it after absorbing it. If I wanted a newer version, I’d have to start from scratch.

Feeling confident, I absorbed the drone. All of a sudden, I could feel it. The propellors, the battery, but especially the stuff I’d worked on was clear. It made sense, I guess. I recognized what was in there because I’d made it.

Now I”d only need to finish the program to complete my preparations. Tomorrow evening, I could launch my scouting drones. Then, the day after, I would be able to finally get some proper tools.

School had been nice and comfortable, I’d been able to sleep in at least half my classes, the only real problem being English. I was pretty sure the English teacher was a friend of Henry’s, and the dude was getting on my case. My book-report had been perfectly fine. I’d explained how 1984 was a book, how it was released in 1948 which was a stupid coincidence or just a bad joke, and how it didn’t matter anyway because Oceania had always been at war with the endbringers. Or something like that. I just didn’t really see the point in books that were supposed to be about the future but didn’t have magic in them, like capes weren’t a thing that would be really important in the future.

I was pretty sure Alexandria could just punch the ministry of Truth anyway, but apparently that was something that “You should keep in your world issues class”.

When I got home again, mom wasn’t there. She was probably at Henry’s place, being all gross.

I grabbed some food from the fridge, and started finishing the program for the drone. I was almost done after spending all of last night working on it.

About halfway through finishing the final lines of code, I decided to look at PHO some more. The discussion about the fight, and subsequent escape, that had almost made me late for my flight back to Wyoming had been going on for a month now. Everyone disagreed on what had happened, some people saying it was space-lizards, others saying it was just normal cape-stuff.

The rest of the world was also discussing stuff. Most interesting was a small scandal about a wizard called Myr-somethingsomething. Someone had told him that he couldn’t tell people he was a wizard, and he had proclaimed that he was, in fact, a wizard.

This made sense. He had magic powers, a grey beard, a staff, a robe and an awesome hat.

But, as always, PHO was filled with idiots, who didn’t quite understand how logic worked. It wasn’t magic, because they were somehow a completely different kind of supernatural powers that wasn’t magic.

The last bit of info was about a cap that made drugs somewhere, but, like, not normal drugs, but more like also normal drugs. The stories were weird, but winged one said it was a big deal, and she usually knew what was up.

So, tonight, I would launch my drone into the world. There, it would go to the mall, about two blocks over, and start scanning the local hardware & electronics warehouse, noting guard patrols, camera’s, hidden compartments, and giving me a 3-D map of the area.

If my backprojection algorithm worked at least, but it probably would.

Getting hungry, I went downstairs. No mom, no Henry. Maybe they’d turned into zombies and were running around the streets looking for brains. That’d be fun. Or maybe a radioactive cheerleader bit them, and they were wearing pompons and running around the high school sports field.

Could I turn people radioactive? I was pretty sure powers didn’t work that way. I had, as far as I knew, not been bitten by a radioactive piece of technology, but that Aleph cape kept saying he got bit. They made several movies about them too, so the guy had to be at least somewhat trustworthy.

So, what if all cheerleaders were already bitten by radioactive zombie cheerleaders? Girls like Emma fit the bill there. But then again, there weren’t any capes before the eighties, and cheerleaders, and thus zombies, were around before that.

That, and I still couldn’t find anything but a note from mom. It said she was going out to eat with Henry, and that I’d have to eat the pizza in the fridge. It also said that I should pay more attention in school and that a D for English was terrible. Not understanding, of course, that the only terrible thing around was my English teacher.

The problem with microwave pizza, however, is that it needs to be microwaved. Normally, such a thing would not be a problem. Today, however, it happened to be the day after the day that I had decided that those emitters would be really really useful for my project.

Cooking on the stove it was then.

I turned on the gas, and within a second, it clicked on, and the blue flames appeared. I placed a big open pan on top of it, and added my still frozen pizza Hawaii. Of course, it wasn’t actually authentically Hawaiian. If so, it’d be baked above an active volcano, not on the stove.

Maybe Hawaii had a volcano cape, one that could just run his own restaurant with his powers. Or would that be racist, volcano capes from the volcano islands? Maybe there were lots of volcano capes in places that didn’t have volcanoes. Maybe the English teacher was secretly a cape that had the ability to have complete and total control over all volcanoes within a hundred miles, only he didn’t know because there were no volcanoes around.

The internet, of course, would know the answer. Running back upstairs, I grabbed my laptop and opened PHO again, searching for Volcano powers.

With that, I only found some stuff about a guy called Ash Beast in Africa, not in Wyoming, and he was more a volcano himself, instead of a volcano controller. Then, another search about people not knowing they had powers.

Nothing either on that, but that made sense. If they didn’t know they had powers, then they wouldn’t know to post online that they didn’t know they had powers. Maybe it’d help if I created a post about it. People could post in it if they thought they had powers they didn’t know about. Like, if they suspected they had powers but didn’t know what they were.

A minute or so, I looked at my work.

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■

 

♦Topic: Unknown Powers

In: Boards ► General ► Powers ► General Power Discussion

 

Arcane_Fox (Original Poster)

Posted on March 5, 2010:

 

So, does anyone know if there are, like, people with powers that don't know they have powers? For example, if someone could control Uranium, but there was never any Uranium around, or if someone could to telekinesis on Lava but it didn't matter because there weren't any volcanos?

 

Cause, I was wondering, would it be racist to say that volcano capes are only in Hawaii, because maybe they're everywhere but mostly they just don't know?

 

Is Ash Beast from Hawaii?

 

■

 

That looked about right. Clear and concise. Something was off though. It smelled wei-

My pizza.

I jumped down the stairs, barely avoiding a fall on the floor. Luckily, it wasn’t on fire. The entire thing was black , which really really sucked.

Not in the racist way, but in the can’t eat it way. Not that you could eat black people, but…

Well, that had been a quick dinner at least. Turning of the fire, I made my way back to my room. I still had quite a few well-hidden snacks lying around somewhere.

Now, to get back to the whole programming deal. I grabbed my laptop, and started finishing my code. It took about an hour, and it had gotten dark outside.

I reached out to the back of my mind, and checked. Over the day, my power had built up, generating the drone. I could feel I had two copies available to me, and it didn’t seem to be going to increase.

Only two, not as much as I’d expected. Sure, it was big, but it was also my tech. Generally speaking, it seemed like I had less of the big stuff, and more of the small stuff. The little cup that had been the first thing I’d absorbed, I could create seven of right now. My lockpicking tool, taking the form of a small short metal rod, slightly larger and a bit heavier than the cup, I had five of.

Was it because half the drone was just something someone else had bought in a store? Or was it really just almost too big?

I grabbed the both of them, and connected the first to my laptop through the USB port. Within a minute, I had its target programmed in, and it flew off through the window, into the night sky.

The second, I gave the same target, but a different approach. That way, I could combine their data. Hopefully.

Now the waiting game had begun.

I checked PHO, no-one had replied yet. It hadn’t been too long, but you usually got replies within half an hour on the big boards. Everyone was probably too embarrassed and didn’t want to let on that they didn’t know.

I tried surfing around a bit more, checking the less famous sites as well, and eventually settled on catching up on the Westlake cape scene. As little as there was of it anyway.

As far as I could see, there were four capes in the city. Five if I counted myself. The most famous of them was probably Rodeo. He had this weird power that was sort of a really subtle mind control thing. The reason he was famous, was because he often got called in to places all around the country to guide large groups of people in the right direction. Stuff like potential riots and things like that. He dressed himself as a cowboy for some reason, with a cool hat, spurs that looked like they were made of plastic, a cool duster, and, apparently, a fake cigar. He was a part of the Protectorate, but not really someone who fought people. The only reason he was stationed here was that he was a local, and he’d get called away to other cities all the time anyway.

Then there was Skip, a little girl that was probably about ten years old or something. Really young for a ward. What her power did was turn everything she touch into a trampoline. So, if she bounced on the ground, she’d go higher and higher, but if someone shot her, it bounced off of her somehow.

And, of course, there was Horn. A vigilante. Everyone in town knew about him, because he’d been in the news. He used to be part of the Protectorate, and last year, he’d gone to South America to fight Leviathan. He’d caught some attention there, and something had happened, and he’d decided to leave the Protectorate. Then, some lawyer had claimed that the name Horn was copyrighted or something, and Horn had disagreed with him.

Horn was, by far, the biggest dog in town. Unlike Rodeo, who couldn’t really hurt anyone directly, Horn had super-strength. He had these, well, horns, that he could grow. Somewhere between rhino-horns and brambles. They were really sturdy, and the more of them he had, the stronger he got. Only, he was also kind of slow, because the horns were really heavy. He’d used his powers on the second floor of the elementary school once, and fallen straight through the floor. At least that’s what the word at school was.

We also had our very own supervillain. Hallucca. A crazy witch that seemed to warp reality around her. Stuff changed almost randomly around her. One car splitting into two, buildings becoming all Eschery, lampposts and clothing starting to melt. She was weird, and whenever she decided to go out and attack people, there’d be a whole lot of property damage. People were usually all right though. She couldn’t really hurt them I think, it said something about a guy called Manton online, which meant that she couldn’t.

Then, of course, last but most certainly not least, there was the greatest of them all, the famous master criminal Gadget, famous for being so stealthy that no-one ever caught her in the act.

You know, as long as tomorrows heist worked out.

***

I had a big black hoodie, baggy pants, black shoes, black gloves, and last but most certainly not least, a big black scarf wrapped around my head.

I also had a perfect 3-D model of my target, including the locations of all the security cameras, a point of entrance, and the location of the hidden safe in the manager’s office.

And then, I had the tools of my trade, ready at my beck and call just outside of the material world.

Five lockpicking devices

Four loopers, launchers with small chips that would attach to a digital camera and create a, well, loop.

Two drones, ready to, well, they wouldn’t be very useful here.

I also had a couple of phones, which I could throw at people or something. Also some other random stuff. A pen, which, as it turned out, was completely useless, given that the ink disappeared after a few hours, as well as Henry’s credit-card. Which wasn’t as useful as you’d think, because he’d reported it stolen almost immediately.

I guess maybe if I got really lucky I could throw it like the James Bond guy. Probably not though.

And, of course, several copies of a big burlap sack, for carrying the loot that I couldn’t just absorb.

I looked at my target. A small fire escape on the second floor. It was easy enough to climb up, and I let down the stairs so I could make a quick escape if necessary. Looking around, I could see a streetlight in the distance, but no-one would be able to see me from the main road.

My heart was beating in my throat. This was it. I grabbed a lockpicker, and placed it on the keyhole of the fire escape. Within seconds, the tiny metal tools in the device came out, and I could swing the door open. Happy to get away from the small metal ledge, I found myself in the manager’s office.

Was that normal? Putting the fire escape in the manager’s office? Or was it mostly just because the manager was afraid of fire so he made sure he had an escape route?

Almost immediately, I spotted the camera, aimed at the other door of the office, as well as the desk. Time for my second gadget.

It was basically a tiny catapult, with a smart chip inside it, that would reroute whatever video-thing it was attached to. It was really useful, except for when used on anything that wasn’t a video-system. If it contained sound, it would probably not work perfectly, but without sound? It’d find a perfect loop and just repeat that until the chip disappeared, after which there’d be no evidence.

Four of them, that was what I had here. After that, I’d need to wait one or two hours before the next one appeared. I’d tried to check, but it didn’t seem like there was a specific amount of time or anything like that.

I aimed, shot, and missed, the little chip falling to the floor beneath the camera.

I grabbed another, and aimed higher, hopefully high enough to counteract the drop.

I shot, and hit. I could see one or two sparks coming from the little chip, and then the camera suddenly stopped doing anything.

Taking a better look around, I saw one of the things I’d been looking for standing on the manager’s desk. A see-through monitor, some sort of transparent LCD-thing. I grabbed it, and put it in the lootbag. It wasn’t that I needed a new monitor, it was that the materials inside of the high-end thing would really help in making a HUD. I could probably figure out some way to bend the “glass” into a better shape, then rework it a bit, it was just plain amazing.

It was also rather heavy, but whatevs. Most of the stuff I’d come for I could just absorb. After all, they were only tools, not materials. Materials themselves were best stolen normally, instead of using my power for it.

After loading the big screen in my bag, and dropping the bag under the desk, I went for the wall-mounted safe. It was tastefully hidden behind a calendar with a picture of some adorable little penguins.

At which point I stumbled across a problem. The safe was electrical, containing a small number pad. That wasn’t something I’d planned for.

My unlockers would work on almost any lock, that’s how I’d designed them, but it had to be an actual lock for them to work…

Shitsnacks.

Well, it was about time for me to get to the real crux of the matter. The main store.

I opened the second door, the one leading out of the managers office, into the store proper. It ended on a small balcony from which the manager could overlook the store, and his workers. It was also, luckily, not watched by any cameras. I knew where I had to go to get what I wanted. And I knew which cameras I needed to disable for that. I hadn’t thought about what would happen when I missed, so I’d have to give up on one or two things that’d be out of reach, but I could get at least two thirds of the stuff I’d been looking for.

Aiming carefully this time, I hit both the cameras in my path. Then, I made my way down through the semi-dark store. My second loot-bag, I filled with small stuff. Batteries, wires, nuts and bolts, basically anything I could easily grab and that would be useful as a raw material. My real target however, was the tools. Mostly stuff with batteries. Sure, it’d suck if they went empty for a normal person. For me, I could just create a new one. I grabbed saws, drills, hammers, a miniature leaf-blower, a tiny vacuum that would help in keeping my workspace clean, and would probably create a small dust explosion when it disappeared, a few mechanical rulers, lots of fun stuff. They even had a smallish chainsaw I could blueprint. Sure, I probably wouldn’t get more than one at a time, but one would probably be enough.

I was careful to stay out of sight of the still working cameras, so I couldn’t get absolutely everything I wanted, but I did manage to sneak by the cashier’s place to grab some of the candy they had.

All in all, it’d probably taken me about half an hour. Once, the guard had patrolled outside the store, in the hallways of the mall proper, but I’d calculated his patrol routes from yesterday, so I could easily hide while he was walking by.

I made my way back upstairs, taking care not to whistle too loudly, when I heard a voice coming from outside.

I looked into the manager’s office, and quickly saw I’d left the door outside open. The voice coming from outside sounded drunk.

Drunk and old.

Thinking quickly, I made a dash for the manager’s desk, hiding beneath it, next to my other lootbag.

“C’mon dolly, it’ll be a big tickle. We’ll grab some dough, maybe find something more to drink.” A croaky voice said.

“I don’t know Don, sounds dangerous.” A woman said, trying to sound young.

“Don’t be such a cube darling.” Another man said.

There were quite a few of them, and I could hear them walking up the stairs of the fire escape, into the room. Half the time, I had no idea what they were saying, as there speech was all slurred, like mom after a bad breakup. Also, they spoke in old people slang, about people not having a cow or rattlesnakes. It was weird.

The weirdest part, however, was when I felt something crash on top of the desk I was hiding under. The desk had a closed back, so they couldn’t see me, but…

It wasn’t some object they’d thrown on top of the desk. It was one of the Dollies, some old woman that couldn’t have been younger than eighty from the sound of her rheumatic bones.

Now sure, old people sitting on top of my hiding space was bad. Problem was, it got worse, as she started necking with someone. It was absolutely, completely, disgusting, especially since, after a few minutes, I could hear the woman tell the guy to calm down because her dentures were coming loose.

I desperately needed some sort of ear-plug technology, because this was far too much information.

Luckily, most of them had decided to go downstairs into the store itself.

Or, maybe, not luckily. They wouldn’t know to keep within the area that wasn’t covered by the remaining cameras. The guard would see them, the cops would arrive, and then… Well, sure, the old people would be arrested, but so would I.

Trying as hard as I could not to think about the people reliving their youth on top of me, I focussed on the other sounds. It was mayhem. The old people were shouting and throwing stuff. I could hear glass breaking, and big thuds that had to be large things falling over.

Eventually, they started to leave. For some reason, however, they weren’t leaving through the fire escape. Instead, they were walking to the store.

Once the people on top of me went after them, I checked. The old people had broken open the iron flaps keeping the store-front closed, and were going into the mall proper. However, they had left total carnage behind. Where I had been stealthy, they had gone on a rampage. Power tools had been thrown around while they were turned on, half the computer screens and tv’s had been thrown on the floor, and someone had set a fire in the corner of the store. I made my way down there, checking to see where the octogenarian horde had gone.

When I was halfway to the entrance, the fire alarm went off. Just what I needed, sprinklers.

It was time to get out, so I’d go outside of the store and leave through the front entrance.

Except… there was a fire. Fire escape…. I had to use the fire escape I was pretty sure, it was what I’d been planning for. Why did I want to take the front as an exit instead? It made sense, it was logical, but… I couldn’t help but feel like I was forgetting something.

As I thought about it, I started to get wet. I needed to get out of here now, if I wanted to safe some of the electronics I’d taken. I ran back up, into the manager’s office, to grab the two bags of loot I’d gathered. Then, I made my way to the fire escape, downstairs into the alley.

At the front of the mall, one street over, I could see the police siren light thingies. The cops had arrived. I could count myself lucky that I’d decided to take the fire escape rather than the front exit like those, well, old people. They’d be in custody right around now, and I didn’t think I could have fought my way out of a complete surround. Given the scale of the operation, it was even possible that Rodeo was there.

Rodeo… of course…

I had to get away from this place, and no matter what I thought, I had to do it by moving away from all those cops.


	5. Chapter 5

Gadget 2.1

The Nuclear Nursing Home, The Grandfather Gang, The Repeat of the Roaring twenties.

I guess newspapers really like to use alliteration in their headlines. I couldn’t blame them, really. The last newsworthy event that happened in Westlake and its surroundings was Horn leaving the protectorate over PR concerns. The guy covered himself in massive horn-like growths, and appearantly, some idiot from New York had come down and told him that he was “too intimidating”, and that he should dial down his power-use so that he wouldn’t scare the children or something. Horn, logically, didn’t want to work for an organization that forbade him from using his power to make himself bulletproof with a full covering. When I looked him up on PHO, it said that there was still a big lawsuit around the use of his cape identity, with the PRT saying that “Horn”, the costume, and all related merchandise belonged to them, and Horn saying that copyrighting his “costume”, that being, his natural growths covering his body, was akin to copyrighting someone’s face and forcing them to get plastic surgery.

In comparison to that little kerfluffle, the local journalists were having a field day. Every paper, magazine and blog in the state wanted to cover the event, and I was pretty sure they were competing for the cringiest title.

Now at first, I was happy with this turn of events. With all the press going after the drugged up seniors, there would be less attention on my own illegal activity on that same night.

And I say at first, because it took a few hours until the consequences of last nights events found me. I had planned to spend the entire weekend tinkering with my completely legitimate acquisitions, but Henry disagreed. I wasn’t even half done with my breakfast (sure, it was 1:00 PM, but it was my first meal of the day so technically breakfast) when he came charging into the living room, deactivated the TV, and shoved an expensive looking video-camera into my hands.

“It’s a scoop Sely, a scoop! This is our ticket to the big time!” he said, his eyes glistening with glee. “Finish your breakfast and get in the car, you’re going to help me cover the events of last night for my blog!”

Oh great… Another of my mom’s boyfriends trying to pull me into some sort of bonding exercise. Still, it was better than a trip to the creation museum, followed by being forced into an insane Sunday School. (Are ParaHumans the devil trying to trick us into believing Scion isn’t a lizard from the New World Order? Yes they are apparently.) And if I played my cards right, I might be able to hang on to this camera. I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it before, but I could already see that it had some very interesting components inside it that I just had to get my hands on. Still, investigating my own crime, it seemed like something out of a sitcom.

“Are you sure Henry? I thought the news had it covered pretty well? It’s not a scoop if it’s already on TV isn’t it?”

“No no no, see, these traditional media people? They don’t have the right eye for this. You got to look behind the crime to see the real story. Trust me, I know a guy in security, and if he says he has a scoop, he has a scoop, now come quickly! We could get on Oprah and show the world that traditional media is dead!” He said. Seriously? Getting on Oprah would show people that TV-shows were irrelevant? Was Henry on the same thing those seniors were? Still, it didn’t look like I was getting out of this one.

***Gadget***

A short car-ride later, we stood in front of the police tape at the front of the store. I’d somehow figured out how to work the camera (was that part of my techno-magical powers? Knowing how stuff works? I’d definitely gotten better at finding the right settings in my phone lately.) and was filming Henry, who was enthousiastically babbling at the camera.

“Hello viewers, this is Henry Watson, your news reporter from Wyoming News…. Dot Blogspot Dot org. I am here at the Martin Luther memorial shopping centre in Westlake, where a small town was violently shaken up by a marauding gang of menacing and mature drug-addicts. According to the police, a local parahuman villain by the name of Hallucca sold a special drug at the local nursing home, after which the seniors went crazy and left to go on a rampage through town. At least that’s the “official” story. (Wow, he was actually making air quotes on camera, was he serious?) My sources tell me that something far more sinister is going on in the town of Westlake, and that this outbreak of violence was only a means to distract the state from a deeper evil! Okay I think we got that on tape, you can stop filming now Sely, we need to move somewhere else to actually show people the truth, and we’ll do some fancy jumpcuts in movie-maker tonight. No seriously Sely you can put the camera away, we’re done here. Hey, are you paying attention to me Sely? I said we’re done here you can turn the camera off. Cut Sely, you can Cut the feed.”

I, of course, wasn’t quite paying attention, because I wasn’t filming Henry anymore, I was actually aiming right over his shoulder. In the middle of the ruined store, I saw Rodeo, Skip and Horn. Rodeo and Horn seemed to be in a verbal argument. Skip, a girl of about 11 years old, was bouncing in place, somehow having used her magic on the floor to make it all elastic, and getting higher with every jump. Her costume Consisted of a light blue helmet, with tinted glass covering her eyes and nose, the only visible feature being the nervous smile on her face. Her costume was a big blue wintercoat, lined with fake orange fur, and covered with orange spring-like symbols, that seemed to move in tune with her jumps. I wasn’t quite sure whether it was some sort of optical illusion or tinkertech, but it looked really cool. Her feet were covered in knee-high boots, reinforced with steel, the press releases said that that was to make sure she always landed feet-first, but they also looked like they could deliver a mean kick to the face. Then, she had some sturdy pants covering everything between the end of the boots and the beginning of the coat, boots and pants being orange with blue springs instead, the color scheme slowly going from orange at the bottom, to blue at the top.

Rodeo, who, on second thought, was probably responsible for my weird behaviour last night, was dressed like a stereotypical cowboy. He even had a magic lasso, that got bigger whenever he needed it to. I’d seen movies on the internet showing him catching twelve people in one throw, the rope extending in mid-air. On second thought, It was probably tinkertech. I should try to steal it and figure out how it works.

Horn, in the meantime, was covered in his trademark (and copyrighted) horns, Gnarly white growths covering his entire body, making him bulky, but strong and sturdy too. Even better, he had started walking away, right toward us. It took a while, but when he was nearly there, Henry turned around at what I was filming and noticed him too. He grabbed his microphone, held it up, and tried to get a reply out of Horn.

“Good day mister Horn, I’m Henry Watson for Wyoming news dot blogspot dot org. Do you have some time for our viewers?

Horn looked at Henry, then at me, then at Henry again. “Look sir, I don’t have time for your news outlet. I’m sure your work is important, but I have real criminals to catch. If you’re here for a silly little fluff piece, you can talk to Rodeo instead.” He replied, before walking away grumpily. I filmed him leaving the mall through the front gate, having some troubly fitting all his growths through the door, and stopped recording. When I turned around to look at Henry, I expected him to be sad that he didn’t get an interview. Instead, he was incredibly giddy.

“Did you hear that Sely? He called our work important! And he said that there’s a real criminal to track down, that must mean I was right about my hunch! There is something more to this!” he said.

“Hunch? I thought you knew a guy who had a scoop?”

“Details details Sely, make this your first lesson as a news reporter, always follow your instincts. Anyway, have you noticed that none of the news channel had security footage to show us? That can only mean one thing, namely that there was no security footage. Why was there more security footage? Because there’s more going on then they’re telling us. Now let’s go find someone in security and ask to see the tapes!”

Before leaving, I took one last look at the crime-scene. Rodeo was with some firemen looking at the area where the fire had started. Skip, meanwhile, was in the corner near the door to the managers office, jumping up to try and get at the security camera there. A security camera that I had deactivated only last night. Still, my looper should have poofed away by now, but could they still find traces of it?

“Sely, you coming?” Henry called, looking at me from above while leaning over a railing on the second floor. I ran to the stairs, hoping they wouldn’t be able to find anything that would incriminate me. Time to see if Henry had found anything. He’d been correct, of course, but that didn’t make him a good reporter. I hadn’t shot half the camera’s in the store when I was there, they just hadn’t released the footage to the public yet.

*** Gadget ***

Okay, so, somehow, Henry had bribed and schmoozed his way through three layers of security, and here we were, in the security room, watching the looped footage from last night. One wall was covered in television screens, with a desk and a nervous security agent in front of them. The other side of the room had a standing drawer, with several trophies on top. Some of them were obviously from the security guard’s children, for sport events participated and things like that, but I also saw a couple of trophies for “most secure mall in Wyoming”. Something that definitely wasn’t true anymore. Now mind you, we weren’t the only people in the room watching the footage. I was trying to film, while, right next to me, Skip was nervously bouncing in place, obviously slightly bored and still shaken from the fight between Rodeo and Horn. Her power made the ground where I was standing elastic, making it difficult for me to stand still and keep the camera level. On the other side of her, Rodeo and the police chief were discussing the footage, as well as a specific lack of footage.

“Look, I told you, I used my power on the entire building, everyone inside was inspired to leave the building through the front entrance. We caught all of them, and they’re simply lying about not knowing why the door was open or some of the camera’s hacked.” Rodeo said, obviously trusting in his own magics. He hadn’t realized that I had indeed been inspired to leave the building, but that the fire alarm had partly woken me up and allowed me to take the fire exit instead.

“So, what you’re saying is, you think one of these Seniors had access to a spare key, and was able to hack into the security consoles in order to put a loop on half the camera’s in the store? Do capes even come in 80 year old versions?”

Then, Skip spoke up, her voice painfully squeaky. “Look I toldya, there’s a small dent on the cameras, they hacked the cams, not the console, I swear.” Darn, she was, painfully enough, pretty much correct.

On that, Henry saw his chance, he gestured for me o aim my camera at him, and tried to interview Skip. “Well then young lady, could you tell our viewers what you think about this exciting new supervillain in the proud city of Westlake?”

Skip looked at Henry, then at the camera, a nervous look on her face. That seemed to be a repeating pattern, the girl was always nervous about something. Before she could answer, however, Rodeo stepped in front of the camera, an angry look on his face.

“Look, that’s enough, its time for you two to leave. This is a crime-scene. We have one supervillain selling high-tech pills to seniors, and another randomly deactivating cameras. Please leave us to our jobs and get out of here, there will be a press release in the evening.”

With that, it was clear it was time for us to leave. Still, Henry’s mood seemed to be the polar opposite of mine. He had his scoop, confirmation from the protectorate that there was a new villain in town. Me, I had my own problem. I commit one little theft and the protectorate is already on my heels. While walking out, I kept my left hand in my pocket, covering the only good thing that came from this little outing. A little medal that said “Best Security 2009”.


	6. Chapter 6

Gadget 2.2

Used to be, I was uninterested in school. The stuff you learned in Biology or Math just wasn’t as interesting as the stuff you find on the internet or in books. Plus, doodling in your notebook is just way more interesting than actually paying attention to a teacher.

Keyword: used to be.

These days, school was interesting. Not that I could pay attention to lessons, but at least it was interesting. So interesting, in fact, that I couldn’t pay any attention. Take Mr. Smith’s Biology class for example. Sure, it might not seem very interesting to learn that the mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell. But it was inspiring. You see, the problem with most technology is that it needs a power source. So if you want to make something small, you’re limited by the fact that you still need to include a battery. But in the body, every single cell could produce energy for itself. It still needed to get food from outside, but turning that into energy it could do on its own.

I could probably tinker up something like that. My first project was a helmet. If I wanted to be a respected cape, I needed a cool costume. Thus, I start with the helmet, the most important part of a costume.

I still had the see-through screen from the manager’s office. I could probably bend the glass in that to make an awesome face-screen, making it opaque from the other side, and giving me an awesome HUD. I just had to make sure that the screen could communicate with a computer, and was self-sufficient. The best solution would be to create individual pixels that drew energy from a magnetic field that also supplied them with information on what images to show, but to do that I would have to build it from the ground up, for which I didn’t have the materials, tools, or experience. I could, however, create an intermediate effort with the screen I now had, supplying energy from a separate battery and processing unit. By making it modular, I could upgrade the software and power source without having to build a new helmet. After all, I couldn’t change my designs after absorbing it into my gadget-space.

And that’s what I meant with still not being able to pay attention. Mr Smith was talking about RNA now, and I simply had no idea what that was. Is it some kind of new magical DNA that only occurs in people with powers? Does it have something to do with helixes? Helixes were amazing, I could create a helical double coil of copper to create a coil-gun, allowing me to quickly accelerate a projectile and shoot it at someone without using gun-powder. Instead, electricity was what it used, but that still didn’t bring me any closer to figuring out just what Mr Smith was talking about.

“Well then everybody, it’s time to do a group exercise, it shouldn’t be hard if you paid any attention. I am going to put you into groups of four, and you’ll have to write a short paper on DNA, how it can duplicate, and what it does. I’m selecting the groups, because you’ll have to learn with people you don’t like as much too.”

Oh Golly, a group assignment from Mr Smith. Of course it shouldn’t be that hard, you know, if you had a PhD in homework.

 

***Gadget***

“Did you guys hear about the mall” Emma said, her shrill little voice hurting my ears. Emma was your typical mall-rat cheerleader bullshit girl. Probably. We didn’t really interact much, but she had long platinum blonde hair and an actual rack so it was probably true.

“Yeah, those old people were like, crazy hardcore. It’s so cool what they did, shoving a middle finger to the establishment.” That was Gary. Gary was your stereotypical Goth kid from ten years ago. Like someone made a statistical analysis of all Goth kids in the US, and what came out was Gary. He wore black lipstick, had emo hair covering one eye. (I could develop a small eye-lens that shifted the wavelength of incoming light. He’d be able to see in a wavelength that went right through his hair, which meant that I was losing focus again and needed to pay attention.)

“So why doesn’t Rodeo just arrest Hallucca? I mean, we know she’s behind this shit right?” That was Percy, I didn’t know much about Percy, except that he was obviously an Armsmaster fan. He was wearing an Armsmaster hoody, underneath which I could see an Armsmaster T-shirt. He was wearing normal jeans, but finished his outfit with green glowing Eidolon shoes. Colour co-ordination was not his superpower.

“Because she’s like crazy strong right?” Emma replied, looking at the rest of us for confirmation.

“It’s not that she’s strong, it’s that her magic causes collateral damage.” I butted in. True, as far as I could tell. Hallucca had the ability to create powerful apparitions and warp buildings and space around her. What kept her minor league, was that she didn’t seem to have a lot of control over this power. “Both Rodeo and Horn could probably beat her, but it’d probably destroy everything in the vicinity.”

They all looked at me as if I was some sort of cape geek. What the hell, I’m not the one decked in Armsmaster gear. Eventually, Gary replied: “That’s like, so depressing, like a phyrrnicious victory or something right? Really shows you how useless life is.”

“Ugh, so depressing, lets talk about something fun guys.” Emma replied, obviously just as annoyed with Gary as I was. Seriously, were Goths even a thing anymore?

“Yeah, lets talk about something fun, like our homework assignment, you know, the reason we’re in the library?” Percy said, his voice half dripping with sarcasm. We’d come here after school to get started on the homework assignment, but had been discussing it for fifteen minutes without actually breaching the topic. We’d gotten a study room, but nothing more. I really didn’t want to do homework. Maybe I could write an algorithm to do my homework for me. Search the internet for a topic, look at the context a word is used in, then automatically create a short description from use cases. I could probably program it into the helmet I was going to make the moment I had some free time, and I should probably start focussing on the assignment so that I would actually have some free time.

I looked up from my notebook where I had started writing down some basic algorithms unconsciously. If we kept blabbering on about this stuff we would never get done. I stood up, went to the science aisle, and started looking under the D for DNA.

***Gadget***

Okay, apparently, I should’ve looked under the B for biology, but still, we’d finally completed most of the assignment. It had only taken us three hours, two bathroom breaks, four trips to get something to drink, and seven different movies on PHO. The last one had been the best, It had Percy’s idol, Armsmaster, fighting with two guys who were dressed up in bathrobes that had glowing sticks. Percy said they were called lightsabres, and that the movie was stupid because Star Wars was a movie, not a game, but they were really more like contained plasma fields. The battle started out rather tense, Armsmaster taking care not to let his halberd get hit by the so-called “light” sabres, even though the alloys he used in his halberd were probably strong enough to withstand the heat. However, about halfway through, one of the criminals stepped on his own bathrobe and fell over, his little plasma stick hitting him in the arm. He screamed in pain while the other guy started running, somehow thinking his buddy was hurt worse than he was. It was just a little burn, you could easily see by the design that it wasn’t even that hot, they were obviously over-reacting, but the end-result was still hilarious.

While Emma was putting the finishing touches on the report, Gary had found something else. A “news” site, by the name of wyomingnewsdotblogspotdotcom. Great. Absolutely amazing. As long as he didn’t recogni “you can stop filming now Sely”. Aaaaand there we had it. Henry was, apparently, too incompetent to actually edit the footage, and had put it all on the website, including the parts where he was telling me to stop filming and I was zooming in on Rodeo’s finely shaped butt.

“Whoa, Sely, I didn’t know you had a job at the news.” Percy said, somehow impressed that Henry had shanghaied me into helping with his blog.

“Well, you know, it’s just my mom’s boyfriend asked me to film him and stuff.”

“Wait, you mean you know Henry f-ing Watson personally? Is it true? Was there really a new cape involved at the mall? I heard he was like a master that could create old people as minions” Oh, great, Percy was a tinfoil as well.

“Wait, I thought the cape was Hallucca” Emma replied,

“No, you see, the thing is, these people didn’t appear on the camera’s at all, so they must be invisible because there was a cape there, and Hallucca can’t turn people invisible, so it must be someone else.”

At this, Gary looked up from his doom and gloom. “Hallucca totally can man, I heard she has drugs that can give you superstrength. Just check the police station, a guy broke out of his cell after taking something Hallucca supplied.”

Interesting, that was new to me too. “So wait, Hallucca can turn people young and give them superstrength? And make them invisible?” I asked. This was information I hadn’t known about. Thinking you’re young again I could understand, but magically turning someone stronger with a pill? Wouldn’t the army have recruited Hallucca then?

Percy spoke up again, reading from a web-page. “Says here it’s not Hallucca, apparently there’s a cape somewhere in the East that’s been supplying people all over. Armsmaster says he almost caught the guy, but that the stashes in the rest of the country will still be a problem.”

Of course, Armsmaster again. It was always like that with Percy, Armsmaster this, Armsmaster that. At the start of the year, he’d gotten in a fight with a senior about who was the strongest cape. That guy had said Alexandria, but Percy just stubbornly stated that with Armsmaster could easily win if he had prep time, creating some sort of anti-Alexandria bug-spray or something. Back then, I thought it was nonsense. But now? If I thought about the stuff I could probably make, and extrapolated to what a big time tinker like Armsmaster could make, it wasn’t quite as unbelievable anymore. Did that mean Percy was also a tinker? Or was he just a crazy fanboy?

Emma spoke up again, while standing up to walk to the printer, apparently our paper was now finally done. I now knew that DNA created RNA which then created proteins in something called a ribosome. What all of that meant, I have no idea, I’m pretty sure I’m not a biology tinker. “So they can’t stop Hallucca from distributing the drugs, because there’d be too much collateral damage, but they can’t do nothing, because there’ll be too much collateral damage?”

“Precisely, life is suffering” Gary answered, the gloomy little bugger.

Still, we were finally done with this stupid assignment. We were all ready to leave, and started walking towards the entrance of the library, when we saw something interesting. Horn was standing there, covered with twice his normal weight in horns. In one hand, he had a stack of flyers, with the other, he was trying to pin one of them on the public message board, but the mass of horns around him made that task difficult. Percy started running towards him.

“Excuse me sir can I help you sir you’re awesome sir!” He blabbered, obviously excited at seeing a real cape in the flesh and or horns.

Horn looked at the guy, and said “Sure, just put this flyer on the message board, and spread some more around town.”

Then, he saw the rest of us approaching, and a glint of recognition shimmered in his eyes.

“Camera Girl, other children, good to see you, stay in school or something, I have to go.”

Okaaaaay, so maybe his looks weren’t his only PR problem. He’d shoved a couple of folders in Percy’s hands, who was elated with being able to help a cape, and slowly made his way out of the library. A difficult task, because his armor was about the size of the double door.

“Well, like, see you guys at school tomorrow” Emma said. While slowly walking after Horn, careful to keep some distance between her and the gnarly white hulk.

Gary, too, left the building, while I was more interested in the flyer I’d just taken out of Percy’s hands.

 

Important news

Information wanted on Hallucca and new drug

Samples of new drug also appreciated

Reward involved, 50 dollar for info, 100 per parahuman pill. 

Bring to HORN, your tenacious protector. Help keep streets safe.  
Horn_Cape@PHOmail.com

 

A hundred bucks per pill? Either there were very few pills in the hands of Hallucca, or I’d just found a way to get rich. All I'd have to do is break into Hallucca's base, steal her stash of out-of-state tinker drugs, sell them to Horn, and collect my reward money


	7. Chapter 7

Gadget 2.3

Awesome new semi-translucent helmet with movement detection that works through at least some walls? Check. I hadn’t figured out how to translate the data coming from my fancy-pantsy new sensor into something use-able, but I could detect when the signal from an area changed, and thus, when something was moving there. As long as I was standing relatively still at least.

Kick-ass neural beta-wave blocker? Check. Being forced to go meditating with Amar had been really boring, but the whole brainwavey thing was kinda cool. Apparently, people who are awake have different brain stuff than people who are sleeping. By playing with those waves, you could make people fall asleep by forcing them to have specific brainwaves. I wasn’t quite sure about the specifics, but I’d used some magnets and a coil to create a little ray-gun thing that would slightly disrupt neural patterns, making waking people sleepy, and already sleepy people fall asleep. It wouldn’t stop anyone during a fight, but would be useful to take down a guard or two.

Party in a box? Check. I started that project by trying to create a better sound-system for my laptop, but what I’d ended up with was a little too good. Still, something that could probably be about five times as loud as a jet engine should serve as a pretty good distraction. That, of course, led to my next gadget.

Ear Plugs? Check. I hadn’t actually made these myself, but I’d changed the logo so they would say Gadget were you would usually find the brand.

Voice changer? Also check. It had two modes, deep dark and intimidating, as well an even squeakier imitation of Emma’s voice.

Actual location of Hallucca’s hideout? Not check. Turns out finding the main stash of the local drug kingpin isn’t actually as easy as you’d think it’d be.

It’s been five days of constantly tinkering and sending out drones, and mom was starting to get annoyed. I was out all day, I hadn’t gone to school yesterday, preferring to fix all the equipment I needed before the weekend started, and Henry was too busy trying to cover the events of last week to provide her with attention, so she kept trying to nag me instead.

Henry’s blog, in the meantime, had taken off. Working as a sort of hub for local interpretations of the events of the last week. The Mall thing starting it of last Saturday. Monday, when we had been in the library, there had apparently been a fight. No-one knew much about what happened, but it ended with Skip standing on top of a bruised and battered banker. Then, on Tuesday, the local bank office had fired the banker, as well as some other people, probably because they were on magic drugs. On Wednesday, some other big shot had gotten arrested at the local golf-course, after hitting seven hole in one’s in a row before violently chasing golf carts around. Speculation was that he’d been using a special drug to improve his coordination, and lost it. Thursday had been relatively silent, but yesterday was absolutely crazy. Several of the local skaters had been zooming around town at far above their normal speeds, tearing up asphalt and crashing into cars. In the meantime, a local farm had had its water drugged for some reason, leading to a stampede of cows right through main street. No-one had gotten really hurt, courtesy of Rodeo’s crowd-control, but word on Henry’s blog was that they were going to call in some big-time capes to help with the problem.

Horn, meanwhile, had been doing much the same as I was doing. But instead of sending drones out to the local trailer parks and other such areas, he’d been walking through doors (as well as walls) trying to find out where Hallucca had her base of operations these days.

And the villain herself? She hadn’t come out yet. Good thing too, because the damage done to Westlake had been nothing compared to what could happen when Hallucca went all out. The last time that happened, several apartment buildings had to be torn down.

Still, the entire city was kind of tense. Parahuman violence was something you saw on the news, not something that happened to you. There were even some over-reacting soccer moms saying the school should be closed down until everything was over. Sadly, that hadn’t happened yet. I could really do with not having homework for a while. That’s how that worked right? No school, no homework.

Still, try as I might, I just had no idea how to find Hallucca or her base of operations. At least, not unless I asked someone for help. I guess I’ve been putting it off, but I did have a source I could ask. Its just that it’d be a very bad idea.

Blake had been one of my mothers worst boyfriends, from here “but I can change him” phase. I usually wasn’t that interested in the guys my mother dated, but Blake was someone I actively avoided. He wasn’t just a violent junkie, he was a dealer too, and that meant he worked for Hallucca.

 

*** Gadget ***

The local trailer park was a remarkable sight. It’d never been too high quality, but Horns rampage and superpowered junkies hadn’t exactly improved the situation. Half the trailers had recently been torn apart by one power or another, while the other half had been torn apart by virtue of being really old. Still, you had to admit, there was something to be said for replacing street-lights with burning tires.

Maybe it sounds self-congratulatory, but my helmet? It’s awesome. On the outside, near total reflection, like a really shiny mirror. On the inside, translucent glass with build-in HUD. Or, at least, it would be, once I figured out what to program into my HUD. For now, I could increase the brightness of my display, giving me low-level night-vision, and my motion-detector would activate if I stood still enough, showing me where exactly things were moving. I’d set my voice-changer to deep dark and dangerous, and held my guns in my hand.

Well, I say guns. One of them was my looper, which looked vaguely menacing and tinker-like, and the other was my Sleeper as I decided to call it, and mostly just looked really sci-fi spacey. They wouldn’t actually do anything if it turned into a fight, but I hoped they would be enough to stop a fight from starting.

I made my way to one of the trailers, and knocked on what was left of the door. Blake opened the door. He had the kind of face you would see in a medical textbook, under the header “drug abuse”. He looked where my eyes should be, under the reflecting helmet, fear appearing on his face. I wasn’t sure if it was from seeing a cape with two guns on his doorstep, or from seeing the reflection of his own face, both were equally scary.

“The…. The fuck you want?” he stammered, confused.

“Hello mister narcotic distributer, here’s what’s going to happen. I am going to ask you to tell me everything you know about your boss’s operation, You are going to object, then, I am going to fire the gun on my right. It’s a neural activator, it’ll excite every neuron in your body at the same time, leading to unimaginable pain until you are on the cusp of death. Then, I’m going to use the gun on my left, which will heal your body back to full health. Then, we will start all over again, unless you tell me what you know.” I said. I’d written the speech down and had it displayed on my HUD to make sure I wouldn’t forget any part of it.

“Mister narwhat now?” He replied. His eyes confused.

“Look, just… Just tell me where the stash is or I shoot you.” I said, maybe short words would help the guy, he was obviously high or something.

“You… you want my stash?” He said. Had he always been this slow?

“No, I want Hallucca’s stash, and I know you know where that is.”

“You no get my stash. Is my stuff.” He had started drooling, green slime slowly oozing out of his mouth. When It fell, I could hear sizzling. Was he a parahuman? Or had he used some of Hallucca’s special import? He seemed panicked, was this a self-defence reaction?

“Yes, I no get your stash. But only if I get Hallucca stash”.

“Huh”

“You tell me where Hallucca, You keep you stash.” Aaaand now I was descending into caveman speak as well.

The man looked at me, some strange mechanisms working inside his meth-addled brain. He seemed to be overthinking it. He didn’t want to get hurt, but he didn’t want to lose access to drugs either. I gave him a final boost towards helping me.

“I’ll give you half Hallucca’s stash if you tell me where it is.”

“You give me the stuff, you go to the high place. On top, Hallucca house.”

“Sure, k thanks, bye”

I started walking away, happy that I had some sort of hint on where to go.

“Wait, where’s the stuff. You say you give me stuff!” He said, caustic spit being launched from his mouth, I saw a drop catch my helmet, close to my eyes, I could see the acid trying to work its way through the glass. I was suddenly very happy I could just spawn a new one. Still, this guy was scary.

“I told you, I’ll give it to you once I’ve stolen it”

That hadn’t been enough. Stupid of me, trying to argue with someone doing magic cocaine. He started walking forward, obviously thinking I had the stuff I promised him somewhere on me, and not about to let me leave without giving it to him.

Shit, that was bad. I grabbed my earplugs while slowly walking backwards. The guy was almost upon me, and was about to grab me with his arms, drops of spit still flying from his mouth. Still, he wasn’t very fast or co-ordinated, and I was able to put in my earplugs before he caught me. I turned around and started running, dropping a different gadget on the ground.

An earsplitting noise sounded behind me, high frequency tones that hurt my ears through my earplugs. I didn’t turn around to see if it was effective, I just kept running.

Once near home, I checked the damage caused by his spit. The helmet was slightly damaged, but that wasn’t a big problem. Still, I thought glass was supposed to be resistant to this stuff. Did that count for my modified see-through screen too?

Then, I looked at the rest of my clothes. They were in a worse shape than I had thought. My pants had a gap all the way through, and I could see my upper leg. An acid burn had formed, but somehow I didn’t feel it. Did the substance contain an anaesthetic as well? I checked further. A few smaller drops hat hit my legs, and there were three or four holes in my shirt as well.

Shit.

 

***Gadget***

Spit flew at the monstrous figure, spit that could eat through almost anything, but not this guy. The figure walked forwards, and held out a large, gnarly hand. It grabbed the acid spitter by the neck, and asked.

“What was that noise?”

“The shiny bitch, she stole my stash, she promised she would give me.” The creature answered, now hanging above the ground. Too crazed to be properly afraid.

“The stash, where is it now?” The figure continued.

“you’re a hero right? You’re gonna bring me my stash? You promise to give me and I tell you.”

“Yes, I promise.”

“Top of the Radley building, she lives in the penthouse.”

“And the sound?”

“The bitch’s box did it.” The junkie answered, pointing at the tiny box on the ground.

The figure looked at the box, then back at the addict. His clothes, as well as his skin, had been partly burned away by his caustic spit, drooling down on him. Whatever made his mouth immune, didn’t work for the rest of his body.

“Now you give me stuff?” the man asked. Unaware of what the drugs had ultimately done to his body.

“Yes.” Horn answered. He grabbed the man’s torso with his other hand, and threw him.

Then, he looked down, and delicately picked up the small box. A small thing, but he recognized the design, similar to the drones he‘d seen flying around. A patch-job, but an extremely effective one. A tinker then.

The junkie flew through the evening night, eventually landing in the lake the city was named for.


	8. Chapter 8

Gadget 2.4

So apparently, Hallucca was hiding out in the rich part of town. The tallest building in town, the Radley building, was a luxury apartment complex seven stories tall. They even had a security officer with a desk, making sure that none of the riff-raff entered the building.

The building was tiered, every floor being slightly smaller than the one below it, giving people an open-air balcony to hang out on. But, while the floors became smaller, the individual apartments got bigger. The bottom floor held a swimming pool, a gym, and a small convenience store. The first floor, had fancy one-person apartments, the second having several rooms. The top floor was a single apartment, although penthouse was probably a better word to use. Still, for all the money it cost, my drones couldn’t detect much of a security system. Sure, the building itself was secured, with camera’s, motion-detectors and other such tools, but the top floor was empty of technological security systems. Hallucca, at the top floor, wasn’t at home the night I’d send out my drones, directly after getting the location, but I could see the stash in a back room somewhere. At least, there were a lot of pill and powder shaped objects that I couldn’t quite identify.

I looked over myself. I’d spend all Sunday in my room, telling my mom I wasn’t feeling well. She thought that that was because I was sick. It wasn’t a lie, but it was more because of my acid burns. I’d looked up on the internet how to do first aid on them, but it still hurt like hell.

My eyes drifted from the 3-D model of the Radley building to my web browser. Yesterday had been filled with little incidents, people like the junkie I interrogated had started showing erratic powers. The problem with these drugs that gave people superpowers, was that they were still drugs. Someone on some sort of super-speed had thrown up all over main street, his velocity only increasing the area he desecrated. Then there was the guy for whom peeing felt like it burned, only literally, he’d set a store on fire with his pee-based pyromancy.

For some reason, school still wasn’t cancelled, and while the newspapers and local websites were filled with reports on incidents, apparently the local government was acting like it wasn’t a big deal. There’d been a public shouting match between Horn and the local PRT director, (who, by his last name, seemed to be related to Percy) the suit had said that asking for reinforcements wasn’t necessary, Horn had disagreed, citing “chronic incompetence” on Rodeo’s part. Some of the press had asked the mayor for comments, but she refused to answer, stating only that it was “a non-issue”.

So that meant I had to go to school tomorrow. So if I wanted to get my hands on that stash, I’d have to get it tonight. Which meant I had to figure out a plan quickly.

I could probably climb my way up to the top floor by sneaking over balconies, but there were simply too many camera’s to take them all out with my looper. Even more, the building was well-lit, and the streets were busy around there, even at night, so I would be seen by normal people if I tried that.

I could go from the inside, but I’d need to get past the guard to go in, and then sneak back past him with all my loot on the way back. I might be able to put him to sleep, but still.

Maybe if I created some sort of distraction. That might work.

 

***Gadget***

 

I looked back over my shoulder at the burning electric building. The backlit “danger high voltage” sign slowly melting. With my tinker powers, I’d been able to rewire the insides,making it overload, and hopefully lead someone to believe it was some electrical power gone wrong.

The street-lamps were turning of one by one, some burned out by the overload, the others out of power from the following power outage, and I could see people leaving the clubs, annoyed that the music had gone out. I made my way to the Bradley building, the power was off, but it hadn’t had the intended effect. Instead of staying indoors, quite a few people had gone on their balconies to see what was happening.

That meant the outer route was out. I’d need to get inside the building somehow. I saw some people at the front entrance, recognizable by the light of their ciggarete butts. That meant I had to take the back door.

The backdoor wasn’t guarded, or, at least, not guarded by anyone that was actually moving. I unlocked it, and made my way inside.

The inside of the building was dark, lit only by the emergency lights. I could hear some people moving down the stairs, but hoped they wouldn’t see me if I stayed in the shadows. Now, how to get up. I could make my way up the stairs, but everyone who saw me would wonder what the cape with the crazy helmet was doing in the building. The elevator then? It was probably out of order, but I was pretty sure you could just climb your way up through the elevator shaft.

Luckily, the elevator door was opened. I waited for a quiet moment, and made my way in there, before noticing my mistake. I’d actually have to make my way to the top of the elevator box to get into the shaft. I was also a small girl.

Ten minutes later, I looked down the hatch, seeing the pile of power tools I’d used as a step-ladder. Now to get up. In my mind, I’d imagined just climbing up the chain the elevator was hanging from like in the movies. But I now had a better idea, there was a maintenance ladder at the side of the elevator shaft, build into the wall. I used that to make my way up.

The maintenance ladder ended in an maintenance hatch at the top of the building, on top of the penthouse I was trying to enter. I ‘d easily been able to pick the lock of the hatch, and was standing on the roof, surveying the city. Most of it was still dark, but I could see lights in the distance from houses that had their own generator, and a few of the farms dotter around the big lake. Besides that, there was the noise. I hadn’t heard it inside, but something big was happening a bit to the north. I could hear things smashing into each other, and I was pretty sure that I could see a destroyed building. Still, I didn’t come here for the view. I jumped down onto the Penthouse’s rooftop garden, and lockpicked my way through the glass door. The house was absolutely gorgeous. There was a golden chandelier, an absolutely massive TV, even a replica suit of armor, with Sword and everything. The weirdest part was that it wasn’t what you’d expect from a drug dealer. The art on the walls, the antique furniture, most of it was old money. I made my way to the vault, grabbing a few choice trinkets on the way, some jewelry, silver cutlery, a stack of Earth Aleph DVD’s, you know, that sort of thing. Some went into my bag, other stuff went into my power.

Like the sword, a rapier, I think it was called, that would be nice in a fight.

The “vault” room, was a small room with a big table. On that table were two things. A pile of drugs, and a pile of money. I put the money in the bag I already had out, and shoved the the drugs into a new bag. Job done, time to get my payment from Horn. There had to be at least a thousand of those powerpills in there, if not more.

While making my way out, my eyes fell upon a wall of framed newspaper clippings. Most of them dealing with Hallucca. Logical, I’d probably collect newspaper clippings about myself as well if I was a crotchety 50-year old drug-dealing supervillain. However, mixed in the pile were other articles as well, articles about local elections and such. I wondered about that, until I looked at what seemed to be the centrepiece.

Paige Bourbon wins Westlake Mayoral election  
New mayor promises tough policy on crime, after a campaign season marked by violent altercations between candidates, and a criminal element suspect to work for local supervillain.  
Part of her plan involves increased, close cooperation between the mayor's office, the police department, and the local PRT office.


	9. Chapter 9

Interlude: Paige

“I’m sure Rodeo has it all under control.” Paige said to the room, a tiny office in the back of a government building that they used to discuss the affairs of the city in a more clandestine manner.

The police chief sighed, and the local head of PRT frowned, saying “If we had the situation under control, we would’ve caught Hallucca a week ago. She’s causing chaos all over town! We ask for some experienced capes, we have her caught and in chains within a week.”

Paige sighed, “This again? We already went through this, we have no idea how she will react if we bring in new capes. It’s simply too dangerous for the city.” She said. It was a lie, she did, in fact, know what Hallucca would do if competent capes came to town. She’d suddenly disappear and wait for this all to blow over. Everyone who knew anything about Hallucca’s organization would quickly die from the effects of the Golden Lotus drugs, and the only thing that would remain was a crime-free city and its well-respected mayor.

The police chief, a well-build man with a tired look on his face, weighed in. “We have no guarantee that Hallucca won’t go crazy anyway, If the situation goes on like this, there’ll be far more damage eventually. We should at least start actively searching for her, instead of doing damage control.”

“And what if we do find her? Rodeo can lock her in place and throw a rope around her, but without Horn, we don’t have anyone capable of actually taking her down. Sending in the police force, no offense Chief O’Brian, is just asking for casualties.”

“Then why don’t you just ask for Horn to return to the team? I’m sure that catching a dangerous criminal is more important to the PRT than mere PR concerns, right?” The chief replied.

That set off the PRT suit, talking about how parahuman-human relations were already fragile, and how an abrasive personality like Horn would damage public relations nationwide.

Abrasive personality, that was a nice way to bring it. That revolting little peasant had been a thorn in the side for way too long. The man had no grace, no charisma, no subtlety, yet he had the gall to call himself parahuman, the new nobility. People with powers were simply a step above the plebs, Paige Bourbon, related to the Bourbon family that once ruled France, was nobility twice-over. She still remembered the exact moment she saw this new world for what it truly was, during her first election. She’d schmoozed and small-talked, given gifts to all the right people, based her platform upon exactly what the polls said the populace wanted, and she’d lost. Some filthy fucking peasant going by the name of Albert Smith became the mayor, preaching the use of illicit substances, marijuana. All those filthy little peasant mongrels who didn’t know there place suddenly started voting. It didn’t matter how much she led in the polls, the influx of peasant votes was simply too much.

At first, she’d felt defeated, cheated out of her rightful place as leader of the city, eventually the state, then the nation. Paige reached her lowest point, and decided to indulge. When the dealer asked what she wanted, she simply replied: “a little bit of everything”.

That night had been filled with carnage, the cocktail of drugs causing massive hallucinations, and her newly triggered powers causing those hallucinations to be made real. Streets warped, buildings shifted until one became two, half overlapping. Living colours attacked people in the streets, and their corpses became mutated demons. When she woke up afterwards, the city was under a karmic regret. They had voted for drugs, and then reaped exactly what they’d sown.

Leveraging their fear, and the incompetence of the pothead in charge, she’d gotten the mayor impeached, and replaced him in the next election. That had been seven years ago, and the peasants were very happy that this new mayor could keep the evil supervillain at bay. Hallucca had only shown her powers in any large capacity twice more. Once when the previous police chief had decided to go after the network of dealers she had set up. The situation had escalated, and extra troops from the surrounding towns had come in. That night had ended with chief O’Brian in charge of the force, a man that knew how to follow Paige’s leadership. The second time was when Horn had first appeared. The man, a vigilante back then as well, had been hunting down her dealers one by one, something which demanded an answer. That situation had ended up with Horn being strong-armed into the protectorate, on threat of charges for excessive violence and destruction of public property.

Then, some fucking PRT idiot from New York had decided that Horn needed to be kid-friendly after he’d shown up to an endbringer fight covered in a literal metric tonne of growth. He reportedly hadn’t been able to do much more than stand still, but he had tanked several of Leviathan’s hits before nearly drowning.

This lead to Horn leaving the Protectorate again, and left her unable to control his actions.

A cape from Brockton Bay had reached out to her, a tinker, offering drugs that granted and augmented powers. They were free of charge, if she helped him with his experiments. Some “youngenging” drugs in the food supply of the local nursing home, that kind of thing. A good trade, all she’d had to do was test on some peasants, and she’d have superpowered minions, able to withstand Horn’s assault.

The problem was the side effects of the drug, her minions were slowly dying, and some of them sold the para-pills to well-paying clients as well.

The PRT fool was done talking about PR, and Paige’s attention returned to the meeting.

“I’m sure this will all blow over once Hallucca runs out of pills, the capes in Brockton Bay will have the creator caught within the week.” She said, not sure whether she wanted that to be true or not.

The discussion died down. They’d had this conversation about five times in the last week, leaving them unable to decide what to do, which led to no-one doing anything, and the situation slowly getting worse.

“Wait, did you hear that?” The police chief spoke up. The room was silent, but she could hear a car alarm going off outside. This was followed by the sound of breaking glass, and heavy footsteps slowly getting closer.

The PRT suit stood up and walked to the door, “damnit” he grumbled to himself.

He opened the door, and we could see the antechamber of the building we had been using for our talks, the floor was covered in shards of glass,. and talked to the shape that was now visible through the doorway. “Horn, this is a private meeting, what are you doing here?”

Horn looked at the man, a look of disapproval on what we could see of his face through the tangled growths covering it. He walked forward, entering the room through the door, and parts of the wall.

That was when the police chief stood up, and grabbed his service pistol. “I suggest you leave right now sir, neither of us wants this situation to escalate.”

To that, Horn reacted, he looked at the gun, and his horns started growing further, fully covering all exposed flesh, and making him completely bulletproof. Once he was done, he replied: “True, neither of us wants the situation in Westlake to escalate. I’m simply here to take down the person who does want that.”

Horn tried to look at her. When he couldn’t move his head enough because of the additional growths, he shifted his feet to look at her. Paige could just barely see his eyes. He walked forward, readying his fist. Shit, she thought. Her mind raced, how could she talk her way out of this without showing the world that she was also a super-villain. She could really use some sort of deus ex machina here, but it wasn’t going to come.

“Is there a problem? Mister Horn?” she said, hoping she could buy some time that way.

“You have menaced the people of this city long enough Mayor Bourbon, it’s time for me to take you down.” He replied, his voice coarse and rough. Had he been smoking or something? Had he been. Could he be?

“Really, Smith, you still can’t get over the fact that I replaced you, so you’re going to attack me with your superpowers?” How dare that man. First, he took away her chance at winning an election, and now he was going to attack her? These filthy peasants needed to learn their place. Still, she needed to be reasonable, it wouldn’t do to show the police chief and the head of the PRT that she had powers as well.

“Wait, what?” Horn replied, trying to confuse and misdirect her like the vile scum he was.

“I know who you are you filthy peasant, you just hate democracy and that’s why you want to do drugs!”

“I… but…. You’re the supervillain…”

“Me, a supervillain? How dare you Albert Smith, you’re just a pothead that can’t stand being impeached, you’re the worst mayor this wonderful city has ever had!”

The PRT officer looked at her, and started talking. “Miss Bourbon, his name isn’t Smith.”

How could that be, she thought to herself, the only explanation was that he had given a false name to the PRT when signing up for the protectorate. That would explain everything.

“Give it Hallucca, your mindtricks won’t work on me.” Horn replied, continuing his walk towards her.

“Wait, Hallucca? What the hell are you talking about Horn?” the PRT officer interjected.

Then, she finally had a lucky break. The moment Horn turned around to reply, the lights in the building, the entire city in fact, turned off.


	10. Chapter 10

Interlude: Horn

Late 2009, Paramaribo

Water flowed through the streets, several feet high. Walter looked around. Most of the capes, some local, some protectorate, were up to their waist in water. He was not, he’d grown thick sturdy platforms under his feat. His real feet started two meters above the ground, and he was growing by the minute. The structures surrounding his feet were separate, allowing for a clumsy, but high velocity, walk forward.

The beast was close. He could see its position by both the armband that had been provided, and the beams and rays send towards it from the sky.

“It’s coming, you ready?” A heavily accented voice said. He looked at his shoulder, it, too, covered in the horns. Standing on it was one of the local capes, he was wearing a costume better described as being made out of bones, than as being made out of cloth. A supervillain, or did that make him a hero? He remembered Jack saying something about capes in South America, but couldn’t quite remember what it was.

“As I’ll ever be”, he replied. Quickly adding to the growth of horns around his face, which was the thinnest area right now.

Leviathan appeared from behind a building. Covered in ichor, his afterimage filled the street behind him with more water. The beast had a decision to make. It could go right, where a tinker had set up some sort of trap, or left, where he would meet it head-on. Horn checked his body one more time. Full coverage, more than a metres worth of brambly outgrowths in most places, more at the base of his feet. He slowly managed to move his arms forward, ready to meet Leviathan.

The beast cheated. It went neither left nor right on the T-split. It ran forward, up the buiding in front of it. Horn could see an intense blue orb thrown from the shoulder of his form towards Leviathan. The beast roared when the slow-moving projectile hit, and whipped out its tail towards him.

A swift movement of the lump of horns that surrounded his arms blocked the water, keeping the cape safe.

At the same time, Alexandria appeared from the top of the building, smashing the beat downwards into the street. It took that as a cue to choose a different direction, and started on a mad dash towards Horn.

The cape on his shoulder readied a new orb, holding it in front of them , rather than shoving it forward. Sadly, it had had less than a second to grow brighter, when Leviathan smashed into the two of them. Horn tried to move his arms, bending them around the sides of the beast, and tried to grow a cage around it.

The cape on his shoulder fell down when Leviathan started struggling. Horn could only dimly hear his armband. Blauwster down. BD-8. 

The Horns sprouting from his arms had grown around Leviathan, the beast locked in place by an everexpanding growth. But it’s physical strength wasn’t the problem. The problem was the afterimage. Water kept pouring out of Leviathan’s body, and while the thrashing didn’t damage more than two or three layers of Horns growths, the water flowed right through the gaps. Sure, it didn’t flow very fast, but he was still at risk of drowning.

Still, he held on. He couldn’t give up to this beast. He’d promised himself he wouldn’t give up again, no matter what the challenge. His power helped with that, he thought. After all, he could always get bigger.

The horns kept growing, he’d given up on mobility, and simply swarmed the beast with ever more horns. The growths covered leviathan’s torso, digging in where they could. The horns around his feet dug down like tree roots, locking him firmly in place.

Then, the world went crazy. Taking advantage of the beast’s situation, a group of blasters were letting loose at its head. That was still quite a few feet above Horn’s real body, but he could feel the hits as they impacted the beast. That, combined with the masses of water splashing against him and the reduced visibility caused by the horns made for a disorienting experience. Still, the beast was getting pounded, that was good.

It swung its tail, the afterimage going for the group of capes. He could see some sort of shield go up, and the armband wasn’t calling out any deaths, so it probably wasn’t effective, but it did create a break in the artillery fire. Horn focussed his growths, this time going for the beasts tail, trying to immobilize it. He gasped for air, hoping that he could hold the beast still long enough for them to do some real damage.

It changed tactics, kicking with its feet at horns. It broke the connections between him and the floor, but he didn’t fall over, his growths surrounding the beast itself now. Its tail, and upper arms, immobilized.

Still, mobility was the name of the game here, and leviathan was mobile. It simply lifted horn, and started running. Horn couldn’t look around, but he could guess what was going to happen. They kept accelerating, and crashed into a building. The shock, the lack or air, the dust, Horn wasn’t sure if he could keep going, but he had to.

Another building, this time, Leviathan jumped before smashing into it Horn-first. He could hear his horns break, his incredible strength useless without being able to move around. Still, he held on, growing more horn around leviathan’s limbs. Even if Horn died, the beast would still be encumbered, trapped by the same mobility problems Horn was having right now.

The rest of the fight was a blur, he could remember at least one other crash into some sort of building, but he couldn’t breathe well, and thought he had a concussion. Still, the repeated crashes destroying the growths on his back turned out to be a good thing. He felt a hand on his shoulder, he wasn’t sure who, but he took that as a sign to disentangle himself. He focused on the location where the horns penetrated from his skin; the forehead, hands, elbows, knees, his feet and the base of his spine. As the flying cape carried him away, he saw leviathan below him, covered in horns, unable to use his arms and tail fully.

 

A few hours ago

The penthouse on top of the Radley building, Matthew was sitting in the library, this time not using his power. He had been using the google to look up the building, If Hallucca really lived there, he couldn’t go in unprepared.

The news-sites hadn’t said much about the place, only that the Radley building and its luxury apartments was bound to bring more money into the city, increasing the availability of jobs. He wasn’t quite sure how that worked. Building it brought jobs, sure, but more people living in the city? How would that decrease the local problem. More people meant more people vying for the same jobs. The logging and ranching, fishing the lake. Still, if the newspaper said it, it was probably right.

Still, he couldn’t find out who lived there on this interweb thing. It was time for some good old-fashioned leg-work. He couldn’t very well sit here while the city was burning. He had taken leviathan head-on, this cowardly criminal would not escape him much longer.

Still, he wished Jack was here. He was much better at this whole investigation thing. Sadly, the man had been too loyal to his boss. Of course, he also had little Skip to look after. If Jack left the protectorate, then she would probably be placed in a wards team in a big city somewhere. Away from her home, her friends. She’d already lost her parents, and he could understand wanting to protect her.

If only Jack had understood that she could be best protected by getting rid of the criminals in the city, instead of walking around pretending to do something. Working with Jack had been nice, him using his power to bring people into Horn’s reach, but they had been rather ineffective. Every time they had a possible location for one of the local drug dealers, they were slowed down by rules and regulations. The hideouts long empty once they finally arrived.

Then the frog-face had arrived, and he’d been the final straw.

No you can’t just punch them like that, it looks bad in the media.

No you can’t talk like that in public, what will people say.

No you can’t just waltz in there, you’re not a vigilante, you’re a hero, you need a permit

No you can’t use your power like that, it makes children scared of you!

That last one was horse-crap. Skip loved sitting on his shoulder when he was that big, and he had enough fans in the city. Also, it made him like that old comic book hero batman, criminals would be too afraid to commit crimes.

He had reached the Radley building early in the evening, and looked at the door bells, the idea being that you ringed up the person you were visiting, and they would use a button to let the security guard know to let you through. His eyes searched the names, until he found the one that fit the apartment at the very top.

P. Bourbon. Where did he know that name from. He remembered it, but couldn’t quite place what from.

But, he had new information now. Time to head back to the library. He used to have one of those intelligent phones, but that had been PRT property, and it probably broke when he had thrown it against officer Blake’s face.

*** Horn ***

Back at the library, he found what he had been looking for. P.Bourbon was the mayor.

That didn’t make sense. Had the junkie lied? Was the directory wrong? The mayor had worked together with them in fighting Hallucca’s people. Sure, most of the time the tips she’d been able to give them were acted on too late, but every now and then they had caught one of her dealers.

Still, something was fishy. He couldn’t really understand, but maybe if he went from the idea that the mayor was also Hallucca, he could figure out if things made sense that way.

So the question was, what would Jack do if he was thinking about what he would do if he was Hallucca but also the mayor.

Things would be so much easier if he could just punch someone.

Why would a criminal have some of her people arrested? She’d won the election based on an anti-drug policy, so it helped her there.

Maybe to keep them in line? Make unruly subordinates disappear into prison? There’d always been strong enough evidence for a good conviction and a long stint in prison.

And, since the mayor worked together with officer Blake, that would explain why the protectorate wasn’t allowed to go after Hallucca directly. Maybe she wasn’t really that dangerous. Maybe he could just waltz into the room and take her down, saving the city once and for all.

That seemed like a good idea, simple, yet effective. A quick punch to Hallucca’s face to clean up the city.

 

Present

Horn turned around to reply to Blake, A difficult proposition. He’s put dense layers around his body, and it was rather hard to turn in place due to the restricted mobility. Still, he managed to do it. “Think about it, it all makes sense” he replied to the man, when the lights suddenly went out.

Not just the lights in the building, he couldn’t see the streetlamps outside either. Had Hallucca fucked with the power grid? Done incredible damage to infrastructure to give her a small edge?

Probably, that seemed like her style, he’d cornered her, and she’d escalated by creating a black-out.

When he heard someone moving behind him, he turned around as fast as he could.

Too fast, one leg’s armor got caught in that of the other, and he tripped, falling on top of the mahogany table, breaking it with a cacophonous noise.

“And there goes our poker game” a sarcastic voice called out. The police chief, O’Brian.

He could hear a door slam shut at the other side of the room, Hallucca was escaping.

A hand touched his shoulder, “look Horn,if you have evidence that the Paige is secretly a supervillain we can talk about it, but you can’t just attack her out of nowhere.”

Blake… Horn knew he meant well, he just didn’t understand. But then, that was what he’d thought about the mayor. And she’d turned out to be a supervillain. Did that mean that Blake was also a villain?

But there weren’t any other villains around, except maybe that new tinker with the disappearing noise machines. But she was female, probably.

Horn decided that he didn’t have time for his ex-boss/maybe supervillain, and started going after Hallucca. The chase was on, and he couldn’t let her escape. The only question was why she ran instead of fighting. Was she going to get reinforcements? Some sort of weapon.

He stood up, and walked towards the door Hallucca had used, going straight through the wall instead. He could hear the two men behind him yelling, but didn’t pay attention to them.

He found himself at the end of an alleyway, and saw a dark figure that had almost reached a corner, she was running barefeet, and Horn could feel a single high-heeled shoe crush under his feet.

He grabbed a dumpster, and took aim. He couldn’t let Hallucca escape into the crowd.

*** Hallucca ***

Running through the alley, Hallucca was desperately trying to form a plan. First of all, she needed a way to defend herself. She’d kicked off one shoe, and grabbed hold of the other. Hidden in a compartment in the heel, was a small dose of LSD, one of her more effective tools. Still, it wouldn’t be enough for an all-out fight with someone like Horn.

She heard a wall crumble, and, shortly after, something heavy get picked up. She quickly put a strip under her tongue, and started feeling the enhanced effects. When she turned around, the dumpster was already mid-air. But it wasn’t a normal dumpster anymore. Its edges started fraying, its colours shifted, and it started flying in a straight line, no longer bound by gravity.

Hallucca turned the corner as the dumpster-like object flew over her head, crashing into a building opposite of her.

Home, she’d get home, and use her stash herself. Then, she’d take down Smith once and for all, superpowers or not.

She looked at the street signs, trying to think of the best route to take, but it was difficult to see through the darkness. That, and the signs slowly started melting and dripping. She had no time, she’d have to finish the stash in her heel and hope that was enough to get to her main supply.

*** Horn ***

The dumpster missed, crashing into a storefront on the other end of the street. Bad aim, or something else?

Still, he suspected he knew where Hallucca would be going, and he had the advantage in physical strength. Where Hallucca had to keep to the streets, he could take shortcuts, like the kool-aid man.

He started running after her, and saw her again. This time, he threw a car, which duplicated into two different car-like objects mid-air, and crashed down on either side of Hallucca, the explosions lighting up the surrounding area, he could see her sillouette in the flickering light. Tonight, he would end this, once and for all.

*** Hallucca ***

Almost there. She was almost home after this hellish chase. She’d outsmarted that filthy . She was almost happy, elated, when Horn crashed through a wall, onto the street, right in front of her. The building started crumbling behind him, crashing down under the stress.

She took one of her last strips, and this time, she focussed on Albert Smith. His beige-white horns started discolouring, melting into each other, becoming a single object. That would keep him occupied for a minute or two, long enough for her to run upstairs.

She ran past the confused looking group of smokers at the front of the building, the security guard amongst them. Hid tardiness actually being a useful trait for once. She ran through the lobby, and saw that the elevator was open, but out of order due to the blackout. In addition, strangely out of place, she could see a pile of power tools and other assorted objects lying there. Still, no time to think about it, she ran up the pitch-black stairs, navigating them by memory and a small emergency light every now and then.

Two stairs up, she heard someone come down the stairs as well. She took a wide turn to dodge the other person, but appearantly she had the same idea, because she half-crashed into the girl. She only knew it was a girl, because of the squeaky little apology the dark shape gave her. “Sorry, no time, gotta go”. The shape got back on its feet, and started running down again, carrying some sort of heavy load in a bag over her shoulder.

No time to think about it, she had to hurry, before Horn broke through his now mutated armor.

When she reached the top floor, she saw that something was wrong. The door was left open, and she was sure she closed it. She always closed it, she didn’t forget that like some filthy little peasant, that was how you got robbed! Especially with people as incompetent as the building’s security guard around.

Making her way inside, the shock really hit her. Someone had ransacked her place. Still, she had no time to survey the damage. She had to grab her stash and finish off Horn. She made her way to the hidden room.

NO

NO

NO

FUCK NO

WHO THE…

THIS COULDN’T

WHO COULD

THE GIRL

SHE’D BEEN CARRYING STUFF

IT MUST HAVE BEEN

SHE’D KILL HER, CRUSH HER, DECIMATE HER, VAPORIZE HER ANNIHILATE ERASEDROWNEXTINGUISHSTABELECTRIFYBURNERADICATEMELTKILLKILLKILL.

She looked at the remains of her emergency supply. 5 strips left. She walked to the kitchen, a bottle of pain-killers, as strong as possible without prescription. It would have to do.

 

*** Gadget ***

My shoulder hurt, I should’ve looked out better on the stairs, that woman had crashed straight into the still painful burns of yesterday. Still, I had made my way out of the back door again. Where to now, my hidey-hole? Or straight to Horn? I summoned and checked my phone. No signal, of course, my work must’ve crashed the cell towers as well.

So I’d have to wait until that got fixed. Well, I had the time.

That’s when I heard the scream coming from the top of the building. The sound was horrible, like someone who just saw their life's work destroyed, or found out that her boyfriend liked the twilight movies and she’d have to watch them now.

Then the world went crazy.

Well, not exactly crazy, more… Dali-esque? That was Dali right? With the melting clocks? Because that was what seemed to be happening to the building she’d just left a few minutes ago.

Shitsnacks, Hallucca had come home to roost.


	11. Chapter 11

**Gadget 2.5**  
  
Okay Sely, calm down, buildings start melting down spontaneously all the time. There definitely isn’t some crazy supervillain/election fraud (was it fraud? I don’t know, also, not the time to think about this.) person going to chase you down and kill you for stealing her stuff.  
  
She probably just wants to give me cookies. Yes, that sounds about right. Hallucca just wanted to thank me for helping her get rid of her drug problem by baking me cookies.  
  
Cyanide cookies.  
  
Okay, so lets go through my options.  
  
Option 1, stay here freaking out, get found by Hallucca, die a horrible and painful death.  
  
Option 2, take some of the magic drugs I just stole, get more applicable superpowers, beat up Hallucca, wait for what are probably horrible side-effects, and die a horrible and painful death.  
  
Option 3, go find protection. No, filthy internal dialogue, not that kind of protection.  
  
Option 3a, go to protectorate for protection. Go to jail, do not pass start, do not collect 2000 dollars, die a horrible and painful death because I’m too pretty for prison.  
  
Option 3b, go to Horn for protection, give him pills, Horn hugs me, die a horrible and painful death because of that.  
  
Option 4, stop weighing your options and run, that garden gnome wasn’t alive and walking towards you a second ago was it? Also, was it a real garden gnome that was animated by Hallucca’s power? Or was it telekinesis making the gnome move like some sort of minion, or was the garden gnome part of a secret society of drug dealing lawn ornaments? I mean, you can’t really trust flamingo’s, everyone knows that, right?  
  
So yeah, time to run, just start running, you’ll figure out where to run later.  
  
I started moving, away from this damned building. It was time to just get the hell out of here. Straight over the middle of the road would be a good idea.  
  
That said, my lockpicker, would it work on cars? If I could steal a car, I could drive away as fast as I could and leave this whole situation to be somebody else’s problem.  
  
I ran forward, and saw a car parked on the side of the road. Time to try lockpicking it. I summoned a lockpicker, and went to work. The door opened within a second, that part worked at least. Now to get the car to start working. There was supposed to be some sort of keyhole on the steering wheel right? Ah, yes, there it was. I plonked my loot-bags in the passenger seat, and tried using a lockpick on the second keyhole.  
  
It worked. NICE. Now it was time to actually get the car to start. The turning of the key had started some lights and stuff, and I could hear the hum of the engine. Now which of these pedals made it go forward?  
  
The one on the left didn’t do anything, so it probably wasn’t that one. The one on the right then? I pushed it down and the car started driving forward slowly, when my tinker-sense kicked in. The engine noise, combined with the acoustic dampening properties of the car and the current speed meant that something was holding the car back, stopping it from going full speed. I looked out the back window, fearing I would see Hallucca using some sort of super-strength to hold on to the car from behind. I could see weird lights dancing about the still melting Radley building, and stuff that really shouldn’t be moving had started doing just that, but none of it was in my newly stolen car.  
  
Something else then, I thought to myself, still slowly going forward in the car, the engine struggling against something. A telekinetic? A car-o-kinetic? Maybe someone was warping the space around me to make cars go slower inside the area?  
  
I was starting to panic even more. Okay Sely, you can do this, you saw mom, and even dad, drive around. If mom could do it, it couldn’t be that hard. Let’s go over this logically. First of all, this car was more like mom’s car. Colin had a stick thing with a lot of numbers and shit on it, while mom’s just had forward and backwards. That meant something, but I had no idea what. Was dad’s car just faster? Because it had more speed numbers? No, that didn’t make sense, mom’s car could also go on the high-way, and dad had put the car into higher numbers while driving through the city.  
  
Maybe the clock-things behind the steering wheel. The tank was currently almost empty, at a low 10. Or was that the speed. Then the amount of gas was that other one, which didn’t have any numbers, just a full/empty bar. And then there was one with super high numbers and a multiplier or something? Was that for when you turned on the turbo? Cars had turbo right?  
  
Okay, so maybe the little lamps? There was one that just said “check engine”, which, as I knew from TV, meant that the check engine light was broken. There was also one with some sort of red circle with an exclamation mark, but I had no idea what that meant. And something with a guy sitting down with some sort of balloon on his lap.  
  
Maybe something else? I frantically looked around, hoping the slow-moving car wouldn’t crash while I was trying to at the same time keep the wheel right, keep the go-pedal fully depressed, and look for the thing that was making it slow. This, in addition to the light show behind me, and the cries of fear coming from the few people that were still outside.  
  
I tried pressing buttons. The radio turned on, the lights on the side of the car started blinking, and the swiper thingies were making the front window clean. That wasn’t working, and this radio station was stupid. Now I had to go and turn that off again too.  
  
Maybe that suggestively shaped rod in between the chairs? Mom did something with that whenever they had to go somewhere, was it some sort of good luck charm? I really didn’t want to tug on that thing, way to Freudian. Still, it was about the only thing I hadn’t tried. I pushed the button thingy on top, and moved the compensation stick.  
  
That was when the car started moving faster, and faster, and faster.  
  
Time to work on the steering wheel. The road was relatively straight, but there were other cars around, so I should probably try to dodge those. But, there was another problem. I found the pedal that had made the car go forward, but how did I make it go slower? Could I, like, half-press the pedal? Would it then turn on half the time? My gas was at 40 Miles per hour, and only going up.  
  
While removing my foot from the gas, I also figured out where I was going. I was going east. How did I know that? By the quickly approaching pier, and the lake it was standing in.  
  
The pier was probably the most touristiest area in the city, it consisted of a wooden walkway covered in small restauarants, fishing spots, and a boat-rental place. As well as some sort of tour thingy. Fuck that tour.  
  
The fact that, of all buildings, I crashed into the little tourist tour thing office was, of course, completely by accident. Also, I figured out what the balloon thing was, Airbags.  
  
I stumbled out of the car, loot bags in hand and nursing my bruises.I made my way into the half-destroyed little tour shack. In the distance, I could see the Radley building, still slowly melting. In front of it, was fire. And all throughout the city, I could hear sirens going off. So how was I going to make my way out of here? The whole city was in chaos. The pier I was on extended quite a ways into the water, and I could see people on the beach with buckets. Were the fires that bad that the fire department couldn’t handle it?  
  
Still, how was I going to get out of this? The pier was empty this late at night, so I had the time wo go over my options, but if Hallucca was chasing me, I needed to be fast.  
  
Maybe I could repeat my trick, steal a boat, and cruise away over the lake. But I’d had a hard time with the car. I had no idea how to drive a boat. Did you even drive boats? Or did you, like, boat them?  
  
I could get of the pier walking, but that would bring me closer to Hallucca, something I desperately wanted to avoid. She was a crazy maniac out to kill, no sir me no want.  
  
I was brought out of my thought by the sound of something else smashing into the remnants of the tour office. I looked around, and saw a wounded Horn. He’d landed face-first, but that wasn’t the problem. His face was covered in a mass of horns. The rest of his body, however, only had a few tangled lines of horn on it, not enough to protect him. I could see him bleeding from small cuts, and he’d probably have quite a few bruises tomorrow.  
  
“Hey big guy, you allright?” I said, the voice modulator making my voice squeakier than normal. To be honest, I sounded like a chipmunk, but it was better than the deep bearded man-voice.  
  
He stood up, and looked at me. Or at least in my general direction, it was hard to say with the tangled growths around his head. His voice started, raspy, even deeper than me with my modulator. Did the horns influence his speech? “Tinker-girl… I don’t suppose you have any heavy weapons?”  
  
Weapons… heavy weapons… “I have a power saw, but…. That’s basically it. You want one?” I replied, summoning my last remaining saw. The other charges I had spent, building a pile of garbage to get up to the top of the elevator.  
  
He walked forward, and took the weapon from my hand, walking towards the beginning of the pier. “Stay behind me” he said, and I looked past him to see why.  
  
Approaching from the street was the weirdest army I’d ever seen. Most of them seemed to be mannequins, but weirdly deformed, arms coming out at weird angles, colours constantly shifting. And there were teeth, lots of teeth at weird locations. Behind them, a woman I presumed to be Hallucca. She was wearing a pant-suit, and no shoes. A deranged expression on her face, lit only by a bleak multi-coloured light that seemed to be coming from nowhere. Closely around her, straight lines were distorted, taking constantly shifting shapes.  
  
Horn dashed forward, power-saw spinning, he slashed at a mannequin, decapitating of what I presumed was once its head. At first, I thought he’d killed it, because it started turning to goop. But then the goop started moving around Horn, slathering itself around his torso. I could hear a hissing sound coming from the skin, which probably wasn’t good.  
  
While Horn was struggling, Hallucca moved forward. She looked at me, and screamed. “THIEF… THIEF… GIVE IT BACK SO I CAN SLAUGHTER YOU!”.  
  
I wasn’t sure what to think. Did she really think that was a compelling argument? She was unhinged, deranged. She actually had a smile on her face, a smile that just screamed serial killer over and over.  
  
I had to figure out some sort of plan. I needed to help Horn, but I also needed to back away from Hallucca. Think Sely, think. Drone? No. looper, lockpick? Neither would work. Loud noises? Would only make her angrier. Motion detection? What use would that be here? I knew where she was.  
  
I kept slowly backing away, Hallucca moving forward at a steady rate. While she moved past Horn, I could see the planks below him mutate, becoming green, growing flowers, until suddenly they swept downward, bringing Horn into the water with a splash.  
  
“Don’t think Smith can save you now little peasant.” She said, a maniacal laugh screeching out of her throat, and those of her minions. The sound was terrifying, yet oddly beautiful, otherworldly.  
  
Wait, Smith? Mr Smith, the biology teacher, was Horn? I couldn’t believe it. Horn was, if not stupid, at least not very learned. And Mr Smith always gave piles of complicated homework. Was there something else there? Did Horn just pretend to be stupid? Did the horns make him stupid, a mental drain on his powers? “Wait, Mr Smith is Horn?” I asked Hallucca, hoping to buy some time.  
  
“The filthy little peasant thinks he’s smart, but I’m smarter you know.” Reply came from one throat and several plastic mouth-holes.  
  
Maybe I could get her monologueing. Villains did that right? I mean, I didn’t, but all the villains on tv did. “So, before you kill me, could you tell me your amazing plan? I mean, you’re both the mayor and the biggest supervillain around, it must be an brilliant plan.” Of course, I’d left out the fact that, until recently, she was also the only supervillain around, and I wasn’t very interested in commanding an army of drug-dealers. Why make money when you can just steal it?  
  
“Are you mocking me? Mocking ME? ME! I can hear sarcasm you know, you filthy little peasant!”  
  
Darnit, I should make a sincerity modulator that automatically made things sound sincere. That could help.  
  
I looked around, trying to find some way out, but I was almost at the end of the pier now.  
  
The end of the pier, that was it. That just might work.  
  
I held the bag of drugs behind me, above the water. “Stop right there you crazy person, or I’ll drop your shit.”  
  
That seemed to work, since Hallucca stopped in place. Her eyes looked at me, crazy, feral, like a wild animal. She had a predatory glance, but she stopped approaching. The floorboards around her were still deforming, turning into other materials and shapes, some glowing, others sucking the light out of the area, but she wasn’t actively approaching me. I could only hope she ran out of juice before she gathered the courage to call me on my bluff.  
  
I wasn’t quite sure if it was a bluff, but I needed the threat, and if I threw the bag into the water, dissolving all the pills inside, I was sure she would horribly murder me.  
  
The stalemate was broken by the sound of breaking wood. Behind Hallucca, about halfway on the pier, Horn was standing, having climbed his way back up, and escaped from the grasp of the weird goopy mannequin thing. He was walking forwards slowly, steadily. The horns on his body growing larger, providing more strength and protection. Hallucca send one of her minions towards him. A red one this time. When Horn readied a punch, it exploded. It didn’t, however, have the intended effect. Horn was now heavy enough, or strong enough, or whatever enough, that he simply stood in place. Where those horns under his feet? Intertwined with the wood of the walkway? He stepped around the small gap the exploding minion had made, and made his way towards Hallucca.  
  
*** Hallucca ***  
  
Smith, the little peasant bitch knew Smith. They were in league together. They were going to take everything that was rightfully hers. They needed to die, they deserved to die. It was her birthright to have them die.  
  
But she had the drugs. She couldn’t kill the mirror-headed girl because she had all her stuff. She needed that stuff, it was hers, it belonged to her. It was hers by right. She deserved it. The little mongrel couldn’t take it.  
  
And Smith was back. Couldn’t the man just stay down? The beast should know when he’d lost, and he’d lost years ago when she took her rightfull place as mayor.  
  
This couldn’t be, it shouldn’t be. The world owed her, she was Paige Bourbon, saviour and villain at the same time. The people of Westlake lived and died at her whim. How dare these mongrels take that away from her. Not like this. Not again. She needed to control this situation, but she simply couldn’t.  
  
A void, something she’d seen before. Something big, a form too big to conceive, going on more than three different directions. Impossible, yet natural. she swam through the void side by side with her partner, each part of a whole, Spiralling, breaking apart, she saw something, no, saw wasn’t the right, she knew something. A destination, a trajectory. She discussed. Send out a message, a word, but so much more. No sound, pure meaning. Subtle and blatant at the same time. They swam forward through the void together, bending in and out of realities, the laws of nature shifting at their whim, yet still somehow binding them.  
  
Then she was again. She was on her knees, and was that Horn had fallen over too. She turned back around. She couldn’t see the girl, she’d probably fallen down, taking the drugs with her. Was drowning good enough for her?  
  
She wondered how she would kill her, when she noticed the clarity in her mind. She looked at her feet, the warping space around her feet shifting with her gaze, but no longer quite as chaotic. She smiled, and looked at one of her newly created minions, its face, she made more human-like, the torso refined into that of a body-builder, the shimmering pattern of discolouration taking a more ordered form.  
  
Horn jumped at her, but it was no use, the fool jumped too high, and flew right over her head. She started laughing at the situation, the silly little peasants, they stood no chance now. They’d taken her stash, but she didn’t need it anymore, reality was hers to command. Their entire plan was irrelevant. She looked at the city. Gone was the time for council meetings, votes, and placating state government. She would rule this city, as was her birthright.  
  
Today was a good day for house Bourbon. Queen Paige would rule this city.  
  
*** Assault ***  
  
Ethan was sitting on the couch in the base, watching some sort of weird llama based sitcom, in which the father llama sold shoes, and his llama wife was cheating on him with an Alpaca.  
  
Aleph entertainment was weird, how was this even a real show? Still, he couldn’t complain, everyone loved llamas.  
  
That was when Armsmaster, no, Colin, walked in. He seemed upset, and not just his general “we must beat up criminals all the time but I have to do paperwork” upset. He was more sad then angry. He had a printed article from an online news-site in his hands, the paper slightly damp. He walked toward the couch, and Ethan shifted position, making room for his boss. He sat down, and started talking.  
  
“Assault, I’m going to do something horrible, and I need to know, do you have my back?”  
  
Strange, that he’d ask him that. They weren’t exactly good friends, and he’d always taken great joy in making bad jokes at Halbeard’s expense. But he seemed serious now.  
  
And anything that could bring the stoic Armsmaster to this state demanded a response.  
  
“Anything you want boss.” Ethan replied.  
  
“Good, grab your gear, the plane leaves in ten minutes.” Colin said, walking away, probably to gear up.  
  
He’d dropped the piece of paper while walking away, and Ethan looked at it. It was a printer out newspaper article, and included a picture of a teenage girl.  
  


**Supervillain attempts to take over the town of Westlake, Wyoming.**

 

  
_A local supervillain by the name of Hallucca has attempted to take over the city of Westlake, a rustic town in the middle of Wyoming, after a moving battle involving a local vigilante and ex-protectorate member by the name of Horn. Reports are sparse, due to a massive power outage during the fight, but rumours are that the supervillain is actually also the towns mayor. Sixteen people were reportedly hospitalized, with many more receiving minor injuries. Most shocking is the suspected kidnapping of 14 year old Sely Pierce, who has been missing since the fight._   


  
He couldn’t quite place why the article had made his boss so upset, until he looked closer at the picture. The girl had short-ish blonde hair, with some of the locks dyed in different colours. She had an overly large scarf wrapped around her, but the striking part was her face. Her hair might have been a different colour, but now that he looked closer, it was like looking at a female version of Colin. The same eyes, nose and ears, and a goofy smile on her face that reminded him of Armsmaster watching a bunch of criminals run away, straight into an ambush.


	12. Chapter 12

Interlude: Assault

One of the perks of working for the government was the benefits. Usually, that just meant the healthcare included dental. In the case of the protectorate, it meant transportation with high-tech jets.

Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the entire protectorate. In fact, Assault was pretty sure it was just his boss that got that benefit. Armsmaster had served as consultant for some sort of engine design that was supposed to be more efficient and better for all the cute little forest creatures, and the producer of the engine had given one of the prototypes to him in return.

Okay, so maybe not exactly as a direct gift to Armsmaster, but rather to the PRT, but the PRT had stationed it in a hangar near Brockton Bay, and Armsmaster was the boss in Brockton Bay, so the effect was the same.

Still, he hadn’t thought that Colin could actually fly this thing.

The plane was barebones, consisting of a cockpit, two wings, and some landing gear, but the cockpit was large enough for them to sit comfortably side by side. In the end, calling “shotgun” hadn’t been necessary, as there were only two seats.

“So boss-man, can I drive this thing?” He asked, looking hopefully at the flight stick before him. Before he got his powers, Ethan had been a master at Rogue Squadron, so he was pretty sure he’d be awesome at this.

“Didn’t know you had your license.” He replied, short and to the point.

“license schmicense, come on, nobody will know.”

“Actually, Assault, Due to the experimental nature of this vehicle, everything we say is recorded.”

Well drat, Armsmaster, as always, knew how to spoil the mood.

Ethan decided to amuse himself by looking out the window instead. He couldn’t see much, courtesy of all the clouds they were flying above, but there were some nice formations, one of them reminding him of his fiancé, it looked just like a puppy.

He was disturbed by the ringing of his phone. Armsmaster looked at him, annoyed. “You should’ve turned that off.”

Assault replied, “Really, a plane that you worked on, and it still can’t handle mobile phones?”

“isn’t the reason why.” He replied.

He looked at the screen, and identified who was calling him.

Great…

He accepted the call, and held the phone to his head. “Hi boss, what’s up.”

“Very funny Assault, very funny.” The rather unamused voice of director Piggot came out of the speakers.

He wondered for a second, had he made a joke? Then he got it, what’s up, they were on a plane. He evidently still had it, even subconsciously

“Thanks boss, I aim to please!” He replied, knowing all too well that no-one who had ever spend more than five minutes in his presence would believe that.

“Let’s get to the point. Tell Armsmaster that he is to turn that plane around right this moment, and that there will be consequences for this behaviour. I have not approved this little outing and we cannot lose two of our protectorate members to some little town in the middle of fucking nowhere.”

Daaaamn she was angry. Not that that was anything new, angry seemed to be one of her favourite emotions.

“Boss man, boss ma’am is telling us to turn around, says she can’t miss the two of us, though I think it’s mostly you she can’t do without.” he replied, a heavy wink on the last part of the sentence. Piggot was somewhat older than Colin, but they both desperately needed to get some. Also, the delicious internet speculation that would flow forth from that would be amazing.

That’s when Armsmaster replied to Piggot directly, he fiddled with a button on a computer screen, and managed to connect Assault’s phone to the communication system of the plane itself. “No need to worry, it’s not just me and Assault going.”

Wait, not just the two of them? This was new to Ethan. Were they not going on a spirit-quest to find the fountain of eternal bro-dom together?

“Armsmaster I don’t care who else you brought into this crazy little outing of you. The main office can send a team if and when they deem it necessary.”

At that, Armsmaster started making a weird throaty noise. It took a second or two before Ethan figured out what he was doing “kghhh kghhhh… I’m sorry Piggot I can’t understand kghhhhkghhh you’re breaking kghhhhgh kghhgh going through a tunnel kghhhkghhh”.

That’s when Armsy broke the connection. Strange, Ethan hadn’t thought the man had had it in him to do stuff like that.

Break up a call with a really shitty excuse? Sure, fit the man perfectly. Do so without the use of a dedicated piece of technology? That was just weird. He must’ve really hurried in preparing for this outing.

 

*** Assault ***

The plane landed on a small airport, the kind used by enthusiasts and the like, somewhere south of their destination. Colin had been sparse with the details, but he’d been able to figure some things out. Apparently the “city”, if you could call it that, (you couldn’t unless you lived there.) was one of Roidmaster’s testing grounds. Roidmaster being the guy that, until a few days ago, was the newest member of the merchants.

The villain had left town after his activities had gained too much attention, both from the law, and buyers using some extra persuasion. Rumour had it he’d wanted to join the toy-box, but hadn’t been accepted.

There was one other plane that had recently arrived, and Ethan was rather shocked to see Chevalier standing beside it, talking to someone.

Armsmaster gestured, and they started walking towards Chev. Once there, Armsy and Chevvy gave each other a firm handshake, and Armsmaster started talking.

“Thank you for coming at such short notice, I hope it hasn’t been too inconvenient?”

Chevalier looked at Armsmaster, then at Ethan. How well did they know each other? Assault had met Chevalier before, at events, fights, and other such things, but he hadn’t really spoken to him.

“No problem, but tell me, what’s this all about?”

“Can it wait? It’ll be easier to wait with explanations until Myrddin and Mouse Protector arrive.” He replied.

Myrddin and Mouse Protector too? How the hell had Armsmaster gathered this little team so quickly?

While they were waiting, the person Chevalier was talking to introduced himself as Blake Johnson, head of the local PRT office. It being literally that, an office.

About five minutes later, Myrddin arrived with mouse protector in tow. Myrddin, also gave Armsmaster a firm handshake, but when Armsmaster’s hand started extending towards Mouse Protector, she snuck past and gave him a hug instead.

If only he’d had a camera for this moment.

“So now that we’re all here, could you explain the situation officer Johnson?” Armsmaster asked, after introductions and reunions were done.

Mouse Protector, the second best girl in the protectorate, after Battery of course, had taken position next to Ethan, and started whispering in his ears. “So, what’s this really about?”

“Not entirely sure, and not my place to tell.” He replied.

That’s when he started paying attention to Johnson’s briefing.

“For a couple of years now, we’ve had a local supervillain by the name of Hallucca. She ruled over the local underworld with an iron fist, and made quite a lot of money in the drug trade. We suspect that her powers consist of a large and varied arsenal of shaker effects, ranging from telekinesis to matter transmutation and time-space manipulation. However, she’s always been limited by the erratic way in which she applies her powers. Our working hypothesis is that she uses drugs to hallucinate, and subconsciously applies varied effects to make her distorted worldview a reality. Her lack of control, and the fact that many of her powers were Manton-limited, meant that she wasn’t a major player, outside of the massive amounts of structural damage she could cause.”

Myrddin, Chevalier and Armsmaster were listening carefully, no doubt already forming plans to take her down, when Mouse Protector interrupted.

“You say she ruled over the criminals, and that she was limited. I’m guessing something changed?”

“Yes, he continued. First, she started getting supplies from a tinker called Roidmaster, based in Brockton Bay.” He gave a short nod towards Armsmaster, and continued. “This caused the situation to escalate. Horn, a disgruntled ex-Protectorate employee turned vigilante, started actively chasing her down. It’s hard to say what did more damage, the enhanced thugs, or Horns offensive against them. Eventually, this came to head in a city-wide chase during a blackout, and ended on the pier. The result being that Horn is missing, our water supply is tainted with power-granting drugs, and our local supervillain/mayor is attempting to control the city, styling herself as some sort of feudal lord.”

“Wait,” Chevalier interrupted. “supervillain slash mayor?”.

“Yes, one of the few pieces of information that came to light when this all happened two days ago. It appears mayor Bourbon ruled both the city and its underworld.”

“So we take out the mayor, find out what happened to Horn, and figure out how to clean the water supply.” Chevalier declared, more a statement than a proposal.

“And we find the girl.” Armsmaster added.

Myrddin chimed in, “All the while fighting off whatever suddenly empowered civilians decide to start attacking us.”

“What’s the local cape situation, besides Hallucca and Horn?” Ethan asked.

“Rodeo, the local protectorate, is a master-shaker. Makes people want to move in a predetermined direction. He’s been trying to do damage control, keeping Hallucca and her minions, both animated mannequins and empowered thugs, from attacking too many civilians. He’s semi-retired, usually just being send out to do crowd-control in possibly dangerous situations, making sure hordes of people don’t trample each other, so he’s not quite sure what to do in a situation like this, and not very good in a real fight.

Then there’s our ward, Skip. Twelve years old and an orphan, she’s a striker and a mover, can make anything she touches into an incredibly elastic medium, and affects local gravity as well. In effect, she can do a trampoline bounce on any surface, even walls and ceilings. She’s immune to most physical damage, including bullets, which basically liquefy in impact, spreading the force out in both time and area. She’s limited by the manton effect though, so if someone punches her, she’s just your average twelve year old girl. Energy based attacks, fire or electricity, can also hurt her.

Finally, we suspect the presence of an unknown tinker, with a stranger sub-classification. However, we’re not sure whether or not this tinker actually exists.”

After that, Mouse Protector and Chevalier asked some more questions, regarding the layout of the town, police presence, and other such details. Myrddin was talking to Armsmaster, trying to figure out some way to clean up the water supply.

Five minutes later, they started walking towards the city, leaving Officer Johnson behind.

Chevalier was the one who broke the silence. “So, Armsmaster, what’s the reason you called us here on such short notice? I understand it’s important but I don’t like having to cancel my meetings.”

Armsmaster looked at the group, or, at least, Myrddin, Chevalier and Mouse Protector, and replied. “You guys remember that thing with Reaver on the cruiseship?”

Ethan was confused, Reaver? Cruiseship? He didn’t know anything about this.

“Oh yeah, your first big mission wasn’t it? We sure showed those guys didn’t we, justice prevailed!” Mouse protector said cheerfully.

“Remember that girl, whatshername, Annabelle wasn’t it? Couldn’t pry you two apart with a crowbar.” Chevalier said.

Wait a second, girl? Armsmaster? Together? So his suspicion had been right, Armsmaster did have a daughter.

Now that he thought about it, hadn’t he heard Gallant say something about that once? Something about Panacea gossiping about a girl. The puzzle pieces were starting to fit together in his mind. Apparently, boring old hard-ass Armsmaster had been having fun with a groupie, and something had come from it.

“Yes, Annabelle. I’m afraid I… uhm… made a little mistake back then.” Armsmaster admitted. It had to be hard for the man, admitting that.

Myrddin’s eyes went wide. “Wait, so the missing girl?”

“Yeah…”

“Then we should make haste.” Myrddin said, glaring at Mouse Protector with a look that told her not to make one of her trademark remarks. Ethan decided that that would probably also apply to him.

 

*** Assault ***

“So whatcha saying is, you want me ta jump as high as ya can, and kick ya in the face?” The girl said, an incredulous look on her face.

Mouse Protector also looked like she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “I thought I was the crazy one.”

“Don’t worry, don’t worry, I have a plan.”

“an the plan involves me kicking ya in the face?”

“Exactly, see, I said you were an intelligent young lady.”

Neither Mouse Protector nor Skip looked very impressed. Still, the girl started bouncing. It was quite a sight to see. Every jump, she went higher and higher, the drain on energy being air resistance. Appearantly, the ground beneath her had near perfect efficiency in throwing her back up. Every time she hit is, the ground started deforming. At first, only beneath her feet, but once she got high enough to casually jump over trucks, temporary deformations started really wrecking the environment, the pavement sinking down with her. The moment she jumped up again, it instantly restored to its initial state.

After a minute or so, she took aim. When she landed, she landed feet first on Assault’s face. He’d been prepared, and let the energy drive him forward, into the building they’d identified as holding several of Hallucca’s lieutenants, or dukes as they were apparently called now. The moment he crashed through the wall, he redirected himself again, setting his palm on the ground, and using the energy to turn his body in a circle around it, swiping the legs from under the people in the room. They hadn’t known if these people had some sort of power, so they’d decided to just go overkill and take them down as fast as possible, before they had a chance to show their cards. Mouse Protector popped in above him, and he held up his other arm to give her a boost. She was launched over the table in the middle of the room, towards the people on the other side, where she went to town.

Assault took down the thugs still standing on his side of the room, an empowered kick on the side of the knee here, someone getting launched to the ceiling there, when he heard a gunshot and Mouse Protector popped up next to him. He looked over the table, which was covered in, of all things, bottled water.

“Hands where I can see them!” the thug with the gun said, aiming it somewhere above Assault’s head. The man obviously didn’t have much experience with them. He also didn’t quite look like your average drug, or bottled water, dealer. He was wearing an expensive suit, and had the kind of haircut bankers thought made them look really professional, and which was thus spoiled for everyone else. He brought his hands up, nothing as dangerous as a panicked man with a gun.

Nothing except for a parahuman that could turn into a dragon of course, or one that could make metal spikes appear wherever he wanted to, or who could cut through buildings with a flick of her hands. But it was more dangerous than Skidmark, so that was something.

Mouse Protector, however, chose to take the instructions in a more literal manner. She teleported over to just behind the man, holding her hands in front of his eyes. “Okay” she said, in her cheerful manner, before bringing her knee up into his groin.

They looked around the room. All of the other people lying on the floor in pain. The room was laid out in a simple manner. There was a table with bottles of water, there was another table next to it with a pile of money, and there were more pallets with water bottles stacked against the wall.

Skip walked in behind him, “shouldn’t yaresthem or something? Also, can I kick you in the face again?”

*** Assault ***

As they walked up to the Armsmaster and Rodeo, Assault could see they hadn’t had any luck either. At least, they hadn’t had any luck in actually achieving their objectives. A rather impressive amount of thugs were lying on the street, knocked out, covered in foam, or otherwise incapacitated. Some of them seemed to have had powers, as Assault didn’t think the more exotic types of damage to the environment were all caused by Armsmaster. That, and he wouldn’t scorch his own armour for no reason.

“Any luck?” Armsmaster asked them, his voice sounding slightly tired, and Assault could see that his short beard had gotten damp.

“Well, we figured some stuff out, but not what we were looking for. You find any important info?”

“Nothing much, except that there’s a lack of information. None of the people we interviewed had any knowledge about the location of Horn, Sely’s location, or Hallucca’s main stash. Some information on Hallucca’s position, but that’s probably outdated by now.”

“Same on our side, although we didn’t find what we expected. Apparently Hallucca had chosen to recruit her lieutenants from the upper crust of Westlake society. We captured several business looking types hawking bottled water. Believe it or not, the mark-ups were even higher than they usually are. Seems like the water situation is worse than we expected.”

“So you didn’t find a sample of her drugs? Too bad, It would’ve helped in finding some sort of countermeasure. Still, I wonder if I can’t set something up with Myrddin to suck all the water in the lake through some sort of filter… Pull the foreign particles out with nano-beads, add a binding agent for the remnants… Let’s stay on focus though, you guys get any word from Myrddin and Chevalier?”

“Not yet, I hope they had more luck on their end.” Assault replied. This whole situation was a crazy mess, he could only hope they didn’t have to evacuate the entire town, and for Hallucca’s sake, that little Sely was still alive.

A blank stare appeared in Rodeo’s eyes, and Skip said that he always got like that when focusing on his powers. A couple of minutes later, three more thugs walked into view, saw them, and started running. They looked like they were running away, but somehow, they were running towards the thing they were running away from. Interesting power, that Rodeo, he wondered what the limits were. Was it just panicked people? Was it perfect control? Could he control animals? Robots? Angry lovers?

Armsmaster took a few steps forward, looking like he’d done this a few times before. One of the thugs held out his hands, and launched out his fingernails, which looked incredibly painful, and did in fact result in the guy bending over in pain. The fingernails however, were blocked by a swing of Armsmasters halberd. The second attacker was taken down by a swift grappling hook to the stomach. Armsmaster jumped forward, assisting by the pull of his grappling hook, and started interrogating the duo, asking for the location of Hallucca, the whereabouts of Sely Pierce, the location of their headquarters, the whereabouts of Sely Pierce, the location of the vigilante Horn, and last but most certainly not least, the whereabouts and condition of Sely Pierce.

*** Assault ***

About half an hour later, they’d found Myrddin and Chevalier. Chevalier was perfectly fine, although covered in dust and mud a little. Myrddin however, was wearing an actual bathrobe, rather than a pretend wizard robe.

The two had called them from the local water treatment plant, where apparently, Hallucca had ordered some people to try and salvage some of Roidmaster’s product. They’d attacked it, and driven off the defenders, after which Hallucca had retaliated. She’d made some sort of stone golems walk forwards and attack them, which were quickly destroyed by a few swings of Chevalier’s gunblade. However, the debris then continued forward, only stopping when Myrddin sucked it into a pocket dimension. That was the moment that Hallucca created new golems out of the ground beneath the two of them. When Chevalier retaliated by shooting at the ground somewhere in front of where they suspected she was attacking from as a warning shot, she’d escalated by trying to warp their equipment. Apparently, Chevalier’s stuff was at least partially immune. But Myrddin’s robe and staff had been warped beyond recognition. They themselves had made it out, the Manton effect protecting them, and Hallucca had retreated after failing to disable Chevalier’s gunblade.

They’d decided to make camp, and call the rest of us over so that Armsmaster could fiddle with the water plant, and hopefully create some sort of solution to the contamination problem. They’d also created some sort of temporary room to hold their plethora of prisoners in, until they could find a better way to hold them. Thinking back on it, Assault remembered that they’d completely ignored the businessman they’d caught. How annoying, working without PRT back-up.

Tonight, they would create a new plan, given their new knowledge of the situation. The streets were emptier than they had expected, and there was no-one who knew anything about what exactly had happened with Roidmasters product, except that they’d contaminated the water supply, nor did they know anything about the whereabouts of Horn and Sely.


	13. Chapter 13

Gadget 3.1  
The first thing I felt when I woke up was that I was wet, the kind of wet you got when you were six years old and you had a little accident, but moreso. In fact, my entire body was covered in wet clothes. That wasn’t the worst thing. I was also pretty suspicious that this wasn’t actually my room. The first thing that caught my eyes was the fact that I didn’t actually have any trees in my room. The second was that I had an actual bed, instead of a pile of leaves probably filled with snakes or something.

I heard the crackling of fire behind me. The smell of burning wood in my nostrils. When I stood up, I found out that I was still wearing my clothes, which were totally wet.

Wait a second, these were the clothes I used for… Where was my helmet?

I turned around and saw the fire, as well as the guy that created it. The man was sitting by the fire, warming himself. He looked big, both in size, as in just general impression. Like a lumberjack or something, but bigger. There was a short beard, not well-trimmed, but not the type crazy woods-people had either. More what you’d get if you forgot to shave for a week or so, I think. I didn’t have too much experience with growing beards, me being a teenage girl and all.

More noticeable were the scars and scratches, as well as what looked like a weird pattern of light burns on his skin, like a weird structure covered most of him, but some radiation or something went through.

He was resting his head in his palms, looking down at the fire. When I stood up, trying to get a better view of the situation, he noticed me.

“Ah, I see you’re awake, little thiefling.”

Shit, he knew who I was, knew what I was. But who was he? Some sort of crazy woodsman or something? It’d help If I could actually remember how I got here.

I’d stolen the car, and crashed into a building on the pier. There, something happened. Horn had been there hadn’t he? And some crazy woman? Hallucca.

Shit, that was it, Hallucca was the mayor of Westlake. I had to….

No, something told me that that little bird had flown. She’d been running around in a pantsuit yesterday, not a costume, people probably already knew.

Okay Sely, try to remember, what happened then.... Horn had fallen down, but he’d come back… I’d had the pills over the edge of the… Then something had happened. I just, couldn’t quite remember what, but it was something big wasn’t it?

And in the water, I’d never been very good with swimming, the helmet and the stuff I was carrying hadn’t been helping, had this man saved me then? It suddenly dawned on me.

“Horn…” I said, identifying who the man was.

His hand disappeared into a pocket in his jacket. I could see it now, the extra holes in his clothes, where the horns usually grew out. He wasn’t a shabby woodsman, he was a crazy vigilante…

Was he getting a gun? Was he going to execute me in the middle of the forest?

“You must be hungry, here.” When his hand came out of his pocket, it contained a granola bar or something. He threw it to me. It was just the bar, no wrapper. It was probably completely gross. Still, I was pretty hungry.

I took a bite. It was dry, soft and moist at the same time. Yuck, how long had that been in his pocket? How had he kept it dry while swimming in the lake. Where the fuck were we?

Good question, that last one. “Where are we? Mister Horn?”

He looked at me, as if he hadn’t understood the question. “ We’re in the forest, can’t you see that? Did something happen to your eyesight, little thiefling?” He seemed slightly worried, but accusatory at the same time. I got the feeling he didn’t like me. Maybe it was the part where he kept calling me a thief. It was true, but still.

Not happy with the non-answer he’d given me, I summoned my phone. No service. Still, GPS worked with planes or something, that should work right?

No, wait, sattelites. That made way more sense than planes. But then why would sattelites want to know where they were? Couldn’t you just look at them to find them? Or was that the problem? Still, sattelites moved pretty fast. Create an interferometric device to scan the night sky to locate fast-moving satellites too small to see with the eyes, connect that with an online database, and bam, you’d have a locator. My power was amazing.

Although, to do that, I would need an online database with satellite positions, as well as view of the sattelites. I could just use normal GPS. But still, that didn’t make my idea any less awesome, just less, well, practical.

Then, Horn noticed that I’d been staring into nowhere with my phone out, and decided to do something about it.

“Give that here.” He said, standing up.

“Okay” I replied, throwing the phone at him. He caught it, and looked at what I’d been doing on it or something. In the meantime, I checked the back of my mind. Yep, still two remaining. I summoned another copy of my phone, and went straight for the map app.

Somewhere to the North of town. Quite a bit to the North. How had he gotten us here? Super-Motorcycle? Parachutes? Teleportation? Maybe a teleporting motorbike with parachuts? That could help with both height differences as well as quick deceleration not dependent upon the road surface. In fact, I could probably create a device that automatically deployed several different kinds of parachutes for deceleration for when I went flying somehow. Link the trigger to an accelerometer, calculate necessary extra drag for safe landing, suck on my thumb because Horn just ripped my second phone from my hand rather roughly.

And he didn’t stop there. After he’d thrown my second phone into the fire as well, he grabbed me by the shoulder with one hand, and started patting me down with the other, looking through my pockets.

I didn’t say anything about it, probably a smart idea given the angry look on his face.

When he was done, he looked over what he’d found in my pockets. Typical things that every teenager had really. Several packets of gum, a fancy lighter, a fountain pen, some Protectorate cards (I’d acquired a holographic Chubster last Wednesday) , a slightly souped up Laster-pointer (Math was boooring), some cash, an extra hallway pass, and a whole lot of things I’d grabbed from Hallucca’s place, most if which I’d thought I’d put in a gab instead, but apparently hadn’t.

Before I could ask for my stuff back, he grabbed me by the neck again, and forced me to sit down on a log besides the fire. It was warm, and would help with my wet clothes, but I hated the forceful movement. The only thing I hated more than Horn pushing me around, literally, was the idea of him punching me. He already thought I was a criminal, he would probably do it.

Horn sat down too, close enough for his clothes to brush against mine. I wasn’t sure if he was a pervert, paranoid I was going to try something, or just really socially awkward, but I didn’t like it either way. He smelled like sweat and smoke. Not cigarette smoke, but the kind that comes from campfires like the one we were sitting in front of.

“I need your help” He said. It sounded forced, as if he didn’t want it, but still needed it. “You’re a tinker right? You design advanced stuff.”

Well, there was more to it than that, but sort of? “Yeah, I guess?”

“I’m too slow”

Well, that was an understatement. Or was he not talking about that kind of slow? Did he want me to make something that made him faster? Some sort of crazy power armor or something? I was pretty sure I couldn’t do that in the middle of the forest…

“So, I need you to figure out how I should grow my horns.”

“You need me to make your horn grow? Seriously?”

He grimaced at that. I guess he wasn’t the type for humour. Even if he made it so easy…

“You know what I mean… don’t you? You tinker-types are really smart, so figure it out.”

He seemed annoyed when he called me smart, jealous. I guess he was the type of person who wasn’t very smart, but was smart enough to know he wasn’t, and that that annoyed him.

He pointed to his forehead, and several areas near the joints of his limbs, and I could see new horns appear.a demonstration? Except he just kept on going, until he was partly covered.

He moved to a bag, and grabbed a rifle, some zip-ties, and a sketch-block with some pencils. Then, he walked back to me. He put the rifle and sketch-block aside, and motioned for me to give him my arm, holding the zip-ties.

“Sorry but ehm… I’m not really into that stuff you know? Me being fourteen and all?”

He looked at me, and grimaced again. Come on… was he completely unaware of how creepy tying up a girl in the middle of the forest was? Wasn’t he supposed to be some sort of hero, instead of a super-creep? Although… He did get kicked out, maybe they’d covered up the real reason for him getting fired.

When it became reasonably clear to him that I wasn’t going to give him my arm, he grabbed me by the shoulder again, and tried to get his hands on my arms himself. I tried to struggle, but he was already much bigger than I was, and the added strength he gained from growing horns wasn’t really helping my cause.

He’d tied my wrists, together, as well as my legs, before he began speaking again.

“I’m going to hunt us something to eat. You are going to sit here and make me a better design, or you are going to regret it. Do you understand thiefling?”

I wondered about it. Did I understand? What would he do if I said no? Would he repeat himself, but even slower than he already talked, or would he get angry, and ‘make me regret it’.

Still, right now, I couldn’t help him even if I wanted to, after all, my arms were still tied. “Ehhm, you know I can’t draw or anything while you have my hands tied up right?”

He looked at me, then at my tied together hands, and eventually at the note-block he’d grabbed. After a few long seconds, he grabbed the zip-tie around my arms, and ripped them with his bare hands, which were basically bear hands. Then, he pushed the note-block and some pencils into my still hurting hands. “Behave yourself!” was the only thing he said, before he walked off into the forest.

Once he was well and truly gone, I looked over the sketch-pad., thinking about what to do. I could just summon a knife or something and cut myself loose, but from what I’d seen, I was still a pretty big distance from the city, and Horn could catch me in the meantime, he looked to be an experienced woodsman. I could also make the design, but what would he do if he no longer needed me afterwards? Just get rid of me? He’d been crazy enough to kidnap me, even though he also saved me from Hallucca. I just really wasn’t sure how to interpret the guys’ actions.

In my sleeve, I had something that could help me with that. I grabbed Horn’s wallet, and started looking through it.

There was some cash money, a large-ish amount of notes, with some change. There was also a drivers license, as well as an Alcoholics Anonymous coin, at least, that was what it said. I wasn’t sure why a gathering of alcoholists would need those coins. Maybe to pay for beer or something?

There was a membership card for a bowling competition, some papers regarding the NRA, and what looked like hand-made calling cards, similar to the posters I’d seen in style. There were also a few business-cards that belonged to other people. I saw Horn, some PRT guy, and some from out of town heroes. One of them even from some sort of South-American cape.

There were also some notes, probably personal stuff he wanted to remember. There was one page about me, which contained several lines of information.

Hacked camera’s, Nocturnal drones, Screaming device, Weird helmet? Neural activator? Healing gun?

Tinker? Stealth-based? But why the sound? Works for Hallucca? Works against? Gang-war in Westlake?

From there, the note started making less and less sense. Something about me being a ghost, or a Japanese movie, something about something called a “case 53”. Lots of weird stuff.

Still, after going through all that stuff, and thinking it over, I’d been able to think of something that was sort of like a plan. I would turn Horn’s power against him when he returned.


	14. Chapter 14

Gadget 3.2

My hands flew over the paper sheets, I made complicated blown up technical schematics, copious notes on how to grow and in what order, how different tangles would weave into each other, reinforcement without obstruction. Drawings showing how limb movements would translate to wholly different movements in the completed whole. The whole design was five-limbed, and walked on four. It looked more like an old sci-fi moster than anything I’d ever seen in a zoo. Shoulder shrugs would drive the forward legs, while ankle and toes would be responsible for the back legs Knee’s and hips were used for two different balance axises. The elbows and hands were responsible for the fifth limb, coming out of the front of the thing. That one was made for smashing. It was big, like, house-sized big.

That was just one design. I had others.

One of them was basically slenderman, but bigger, and without the tentacles moving around, and covered in horns.

Okay, so it was nothing like slenderman, but still, it looked really creepy, so it was still kind of like slenderman.

Fuck slenderman, I hadn’t slept for a week when someone send me the game, saying it was an “Alep-classic”. Still, I could totally beat him. I’d just build a helmet with cameras everywhere so I’d always be able to see him. Also, night-vision. Also also, a working flashlight.

The third design was reminiscent of one of those creepy little goat dudes. The ones that were kind of like centaurs but also not because they only had one pair of legs but also horns? The top of the design was normal, just some armouring. But the bottom was like three times as tall,interlocking horns creating some sort of three-jointed mutant leg-thing. I’d be fast, really fast. But he’d probably fall over the moment he stopped running.

There were a couple more, but the most important one came last.

At first, I’d thought about simply tricking him into locking himself into a cage of his own horns. But that had its problems. Namely, that I didn’t quite know what exactly happened when he dropped his horns. If they de-attached, I could make sure it’d still cage him in. But what if they disappeared? Or lost most of their structure and hardness? Changed into dust or something? No, this one was far more insidious. It was very similar to the first one I made, with a small difference. Rather than being some weird sort of sleek on the outside (at least, as sleek as crazy horn bodies could get), it was spiky. Dangerous looking thorns covered it. My guess was that, amongst all the designs I made, a guy like Horn would pick this one. The others looked scary, creepy, unnatural, weird. This one? It looked really fucking dangerous.

The real danger, however, wasn’t to the people it attacked. The real danger was to the person inside it. To Horn. Everything in it seemed to work perfectly on first sight. The first few steps would even go right. But the moment he attained some speed? Some of the spikes would extend too far, and crash into the core of the body. And, Hopefully, if my calculations, or what went through for calculations in the middle of the forest in a situation where I had no idea with exactly what kind of materials I’d be working, or with what kind of precision Horn would be able to grow them, he would stab himself.

And if that didn’t do the job, I’d get in even deeper trouble, somehow, someway. I wasn’t sure what it would be, I mean, it couldn’t get much worse than kidnapped by a crazy vigilante/creepy lumberjack dude who wanted something from me. But at least he wanted me for my mind, not my body.

*** Gadget ***

When Horn left, it had been, I think, somewhere in the morning. Maybe noon at most. I couldn’t tell by the sun, it was too cloudy for that, but still, it felt like that time. Also, I could probably lock a device onto the tidal force generated by the moon to function as an independent time-keeper that didn’t need no man, or watch, but that was besides the point. It was just as stupid as my satellite-tracking device, because I could also just use a watch.

Sometimes, my power makes me come up with the most useless shit ever.

Now, when he left to go hunting, I expected Horn to come back in a few hours. Not in the evening. It was getting dark. Sure, it was still early in the year, but still. This sucked.

What sucked more, was pretending to be his prisoner. I could just summon some wire cutters and cut through the flimsy little zip-tie that Horn had bound me with, but then he’d see that I escaped, and he’d track me. I was pretty sure that he was better in the woods than I was.

I mean, sure, I was a scout. I’d been with the girl scouts for two whole months, but that was when I was, like, eight or something. I wasn’t quite sure, I tried not to remember that part of my life. Too much pink, and far too many pony pictures.

At least he’d left enough firewood to allow me to keep the fire going. Although firewood was too good a word. It was mostly just a tree, brought down with a single strike of his hand, and torn into pieces much the same way. Brutes were bullshit like that.

After way too much time, Horn returned. With a bear.

A dead bear, but still a bear. By the looks of it, he’d punched the beast to death.

“I see you’ve been busy.” He said, gesturing to the pile of paper next to me. Sure, some of them were blueprints for him.

Most of it wasn’t though. Most of it was doodles, loony tunes style.

There was one picture of Horn, getting hit by a falling anvil.

There was another picture of Horn, walking into a painted wall

Then there was a picture of Horn running over a cliff and only falling when realizing it. I’d put a lot of effort in that one. It was hard to make his face look surprised, because mostly it was just angry, and covered in Horns.

Then there was a picture of Horn chasing a mouse that was totally not me, and crashing into a wall.

And there was a picture of Horn looking at a poster that said “Horn season”.

Then there was a picture of my dad, sort of. He looked cooler in my picture than in real-life. In my picture, he had a gun, and he shot first. Needless to say, the person he was shooting was Horn.

There was also a picture I reeeeaaalllly didn’t want him to see. It was a picture of Horn, and Hallucca, and they were making out. I was pretty sure that one wouldn’t go over well.

Then there was a picture of Horn’s car (you could tell by the fact that it said HORN’S CAR in big bold letters. It had a really really big compensation stick.

Okay, so maybe I really didn’t like the guy. And maybe I shouldn’t have written my “Ode to Horn is an asshole”. Maybe that was bad form. But still, the guy punched a bear? Who would punch a bear?

Okay, I totally would punch a bear if I could.

While I was contemplating how to give him the designs without showing him the pages that were most definitely not designs, Horn sat down and started skinning the bear, slicing off meat.

I wasn’t sure if you could actually eat bear. But food poisoning was probably better than starvation, and Horn looked like the guy who had eaten punched bears before.

He didn’t say much, which I was very happy with. I hated talking to the guy. It seemed like, no matter what, he would make a really sketchy statement, I would call him on it, and then he would be angry because a young lady shouldn’t know those words.

Still, I was hungry, and the bear meat was looking quite good.

“Why are you staring at my meat?” Horn said.

Seriously…

“I’m hungry.” I replied, trying not to think about what he just said too much.

At that, he cut of a part, put it on a sharp stick, and handed the stick to me.

Was I supposed to? This was meat, not a smore…

Still, it did start smelling pretty good after a while. Maybe it was because it was actually pretty good. But, it was probably just because I’d hit my head too hard, or the hunger was driving me crazy.

After we were done with dinner, Horn started going through my designs. He’d looked them through, studying the pages intently. Or, well, he was studying the pictures.

For a moment, I thought he was going to pick the slender-Horn design. I’d put it in there mostly as a joke, but apparently he’d recognized it, and liked the idea. If my plan was to work, I would have to dissuade him from that one.

“You know, that one will make you too stiff.” I said.

Horn looked at me, and his hand went out, grabbing my ear, and giving it a twist.

“Augh”…Fuck that hurt. Damn… I wasn’t sure if it was bleeding, but… it definitely hurt like it did.

Horn just looked at me after hearing my scream. He looked unsure of himself, like he wanted to maybe apologize. In the end, however, he chose not to. Probably too proud to apologize to a ‘thiefling’ like me.

“Enough of that young lady”. Was all he said. Oh, so I was a lady now? Not a thiefling? Was that a step up, or a step down? I wasn’t quite sure, after all, our esteemed batshit insane mayor/drug lord had been quite the lady as well. Probably was even an actual lady, like, as in European nobility or something.

So was I a lady? Mom once told me she was one/thirty-eight Cherokee princess. I wasn’t quite sure how that worked, but still. Depending on how much of a Cherokee princess my dad was, I was still at least one seventy-sixth Cherokee princess, so sort of a lady, maybe?

It was probably safest if I stopped talking until directly asked. Still, Horn had moved on from that design to the next, so mission accomplished.

*** Gadget ***

It’d worked. Horn had picked the spiked design. He’d gone over it, asked a few pointed (No Sely, don’t say it, he probably hates puns too) questions, and went over the details with me. It was big. It’d take hours to completely grow. Still, he said he could do it, and told me to go to sleep.

Thus, I pretended to go to sleep. Sure, I may have dozed off once or twice, but it’s still pretending if you wake up within an hour or so!

Horn had started growing bigger, and bigger, and bigger. Eventually he’d reached the size where he started growing the spikes. That was the moment I summoned a pair of scissors, and started working on freeing my legs. My supply of phones had refilled, I had two now, ready to come at a moment’s notice. One I still had, one had reformed in the back of my head somewhere.

While Horn was busy fiddling around with his new exo-suit thing, I’d let the fire go lower and lower. When he was done creating it and started walking around, I snuck away.

Once I could no longer directly see him nor the fire in the night sky, I took out my phone, looked at the GPS signal, and started running.


	15. Chapter 15

Gadget 3.3  
While I was running, I could only think of one thing.

Namely that this entire situation sucked.

I was cold, I couldn’t see shit because of the darkness, my entire body was bruised, battered, and acid burned, and apparently, power in the city was still out.

Okay, so, in retrospect, maybe that feedback loop I created in the power grid did a lot of damage. But really, any competent repairman should be able to figure out what had happened by now, and most streetlights shouldn’t have burned out from that. It’d been a day, why had nobody fixed anything?

Worse, you’d expect some people to have private generators that could still provide energy. Had something happened to them?

I was standing on top of a hill that looked out on the city. The kind of place where happy families went to picnic. Where they could look over the city together. But where the city had been, I could see only a few small lights. It was late, middle of the night late, but some of the light sources were moving through the streets. People walking around with a flashlight? I could see a few buildings that were still lit, but not many. There was the local bank, and what I think was the water treatment plant, where water from the lake got filtered and treated before going into the pipes.

Those things I could make out by the moonlight were even weirder. The Radley building seemed to be completely gone, melted to the ground somehow. Had that been Hallucca? I’d been inside of that yesterday.

Then there were some blocks where there seemed to be crumbled buildings. It was hard to make out. I should’ve made some night vision goggles.

And a weapon, a good weapon would’ve been really nice the last few days. I hadn’t made one because, well, if someone saw me, I was probably fucked either way. The entire idea was to be stealthy enough not to need weapons. If someone like Horn saw me, there wasn’t much I could do except run away, and it wasn’t like I stood a chance against your average cop either. Drawing a weapon, wouldn’t that just get people to start shooting me? I sure as hell didn’t have any armor, except for my helmet.

Still, would’ve been nice to have had the option as a back-up. I’d need to fix something for that.

But, that wasn’t the problem I had right now. I needed to get home. My clothes were torn, I was cold, hungry, sore. I was pretty sure those burns from the crazy druggy were starting to get infected. I’d fallen in the mud a couple of times while running here, and that couldn’t be good for half-open wounds.

I pondered, should I be wearing my helmet? It’d attract attention, but people would probably leave me the hell alone of they thought I was a cape. If someone saw me, in and out of helmet, would they figure out who I was? My clothes right now, ragged and muddy as they were, could belong to either a costume, or a normal set of clothes. If I was seen in them as Gadget as well as when I was just plain old Sely, could people connect the dots? Horn already knew of course. That was going to be a problem. Had he unmasked me while I was unconscious? I was pretty sure I’d been wearing the helmet when I fell into the water, but it could’ve just disappeared after a couple of hours.

That was the same reason I didn’t just summon a new pair of clothes. Like everyone, I’d had that dream where you’re walking around town without pants on, something which was, in my situation, a very realistic fear if I’d summoned clothes.

I should probably just walk home without the helmet. Hopefully, Mom wouldn’t have noticed that I was gone. She was probably with Henry. A power outage meant no internet, which meant he couldn’t work on his blog, and had time for her again. Wouldn’t be the first time I was gone for a few days. There was the time I went to Brockton Bay most recently, and a few other outings.

I made my way into the city, and the first thing I noticed was how quiet it was. There was no-one on the streets, I couldn’t hear any cars, the only thing I saw moving was a couple of flashlights in the distance. I kept away from those, this wasn’t the night to go investigating, this was a night to take a long warm shower. At least, if the water was still working.

The streets were torn up in some places, melted in others, even scorched here and there. It looked like the damage that had been done last week, only far more of it. It didn’t make sense, I’d taken Hallucca’s special stash for myself.

Unless. What had happened to it after I fell into the water?

If it had gotten in the water supply…

I saw a flashlight, dangerously close. Shit, I’d gotten caught up in thinking about the drugs. Where could I hide… I looked around. I was pretty close to the mall, where it had all begun. The front of the mall was wide open, instead of the usual large glass door. Could I hide inside? Or would they patrol in there? It was worth a try.

I made my way to the front, and saw the ground covered in glass splinters. I looked at my shoes. Soft things, ones I’d selected for sneaking around, would they survive the glass? Or would a different place be a better idea? Were there other hiding places?

A dumpster. Really, was that all I could see? Still, it’d beat walking over glass in small worn shoes that’d probably not taken my night-long hike through the forest well.

I could already see the flash-light people at the corner of the street, I really didn’t have the time to be picky about hiding spots.

I ran forward, and climbed into the dumpster. Luckily for me, it was largely empty… largely.

I snuck a peak out to see who was walking by. It was a… rather weird group of people. Some of them looked like junks, or gang members. Raggy clothes, crazed looks on their faces, baseball bats, some rifles and automatic weaponry. Most of that group had powers, probably. One of them had flaming eyes, another had incredibly long arms and legs, that sort of thing. A dozen or so of them. There were also a few other people, well-dressed, professional. One of them had a gun, but they didn’t look like the combat sort. They looked like businessmen, bankers, lawyers, that sort of person.

There was only one thing that linked the two groups, I knew. Hallucca. She’d been, at the same time, both drug kingpin, as well as mayor. These were the people that knew her, that she worked with in either identity, drawn together by her superpowered hand.

They passed me by. They weren’t talking amongst each other, so there was nothing I could conveniently overhear. They just… patrolled.

Why, why would they patrol the city like this? What the fuck had happened, that no-one was outside except for armed maniacs with powers? It didn’t make sense.

I managed to climb out of the dumpster, sort of. My arm got stuck on a rusty edge, and I was pretty sure it got half sliced open. Fuck that hurt. Worst thing was, due to how dark it was, I couldn’t even see how bad it was. And I wasn’t about to grab a flashlight and get caught by those crazy banker/hooligans. I could just hope it wasn’t that bad, as I made my way home.

*** Gadget ***

After all the events of last night, I’d finally gotten home.

Or, at least, where my home used to be.

Right now, it was a, well, a puddle I guess. Completely melted down.

Shit.

Shitshitshitshit.

This was Hallucca… This was… was this personal? Did Hallucca know who she was? Had she gone after my home in revenge for me robbing her? How had she even known? Did she have clairvoyancy powers or something? Had Horn told her who I was?

No time, I had to get out of here. But where? My secret workshop hidey-hole? Too obvious, if they knew who I was, then they would’ve found that too. Somehow. I don’t know how but somehow.

Shit, where else could I go. The police? They’d arrest me for being a supervillain, and they probably knew my secret identity by now too.

The hospital? They’d be able to help with my wounds, but... They’d probably tell the cops I was there.

In the same vein, where would mom have gone, if she escaped. Henry’s place, maybe? He’d asked me there to help edit the interview footage, and he worked from home.

I guess it was as good a place to go as any.

On my way there, I saw more destroyed buildings. Some had walls just broken apart from the inside out, others were slightly melted, though none as heavily as my home, or the Radley building. There were still a few patrols around, but they were easily circumvented. It was rather simple to keep track of the only lights in the city if you watched for them, instead of dreaming away and not paying attention.

Henry’s home, however, was not okay. The entire apartment complex had been burned on the outside in several places, and the door of the lobby had been blown away. I walked through the dark corridors, hoping I could still remember which door led to Henry’s place.

Of course, that was if there was still a door. The place I remembered as being Henry’s home was sort of missing the door. Not in its entirety, but it was like someone had carved a door in the, well, door, so you could just walk through. I looked inside, and the place was completely ransacked. Someone had gone through it, searching for something. The walls had been ripped open with some sort of power, all the pillows on the couch had been torn apart.

The only positive thing in this was that there was no blood, so, whatever had happened here, mom and Henry hadn’t gotten hurt in this place.

That was a very small positive.

I made my way to the bathroom, and pulled out my phone for light. I looked like hell. My face was covered in mud and scratches, my hair was a mess, and my clothes were worse. Luckily, Henry was one of those health freaks that thought bottled water was a better idea than normal water. Complete nonsense most of the time, but right now? Actually a good idea.

Having gotten a couple of bottles from the kitchen, drinking a few too, I started washing myself. Still, there wasn’t enough water for my clothes. Maybe I could take some of my mom’s clothes? She wasn’t that much taller or bigger than I was. You know, discounting the chest department.

I went through what remained of the closet, and found out that my idea hadn’t been that good. Sure, my mom kept some clothes here, but they were a specific sort of clothes, not the type I wore. Still, I’d been able to grab one of Henry’s hoodies, and a pair of pants I held up with a belt, they reached up to my waist, but clean clothes was more important than a fashion emergency.

I’d also checked out my arm. It was a pretty big gash, but not very deep. It covered my fore-arm, and some blood dripped from it, but it didn’t look too serious. Although I would need to get some sort of antibiotic into me. Once dressed, I looked through the medicine cabinet. There were some painkillers, very strong painkillers. Probably my mom’s, she had back problems or something, for which she had the painkillers. Still, there weren’t any antibiotics or anything.

That got me thinking, could I make some with the stuff I had here? There were a few supplies below the kitchen I could use as a disinfectant when properly mixed, I could probably make some sort of bandage from the curtains, but this shit really wasn’t my specialty. I summoned some paper, and started making notes. The stuff I could work with probably wasn’t pure, so I’d have to create some sort of filter first, probably heat based, vaporize what I needed and leaving the rest, I could use alcohol for that. Then, I needed to superheat a needle and threat, that was what they always did on tv when stitching a wound. But, instead, I could create a small device to just burn the tissue closed, cauterize so the blood couldn’t get out, write an algorithm that detected wounds automatically so I didn’t need to trust my hands, it could perform first aid on myself.

I looked over the house, knowing that this wasn’t the time to go tinkering. Applying some sort of bandage with linen from the bed would be easy, so I did that. Finally, something went right. The sheets were slowly turning red, but it was better than nothing. I looked at the bed, all torn up, and I didn’t want to know what had happened on there. Then there was the couch, most of the pillows were gone, but the bottom of the couch remained relatively intact. That looked really inviting right now, I needed to sleep.

 

“Hey, you’re his little assistant aren’t you?” Someone said. I opened my eyes, but they were still heavy with sleep. Strong light shone through the curtains, and I could see the source of the sound in the corner of my eye. It was the security guard from the mall, the guy with the shitty security cameras. He was wearing some sort of weird sigil now, it looked, French? Maybe? I’d seen a couple of those symbols in Hallucca’s home. He also didn’t look quite all right, like he was a little sick.

“Sorry girl, but, I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you with me, my kid needs those antidotes, you understand right?”

While saying that, he was walking towards me. How had he found me? did he live in the building? Was he watching over the place? Had I made too much noise or light? What the hell was going on? Why was he working for Hallucca? Why was he walking towards me with a nightstick like that? What antidote? An antidote for the drugs? Was there even such a thing?

I tried to stand up, but stumbled over my own sore legs. Luckily, when he reached me, he didn’t knock me unconscious. No, he just grabbed me by the arms and applied a set of handcuffs to me behind my back. That, and a blindfold.

The second day since everything went crazy, and things had only gotten worse.


	16. Chapter 16

Interlude: Henry

Henry looked at his antique typewriter through his thick square glasses. To the left of the typewriter stood his Frappuchino Di Latte Bolognesa Ohne Zahne, with right next to it a packet of pumpkin spice he’d saved from last Halloween. On the right was his laptop, opened to his website. Over this last week, his website had exploded in popularity. Articles such as “10 reasons why tinker-made drugs are the hip new thing, you won’t believe number Four!” and “Why the population of Westlake needs to check its non-parahuman privilege.” had made his site the most popular news website around. Part of that was that other local news outlets had been rather skittish with articles on the current situation.

Last Wednesday, he’d been approached about that. Someone from the mayor’s office had come by, and told him that his current journalistic direction was “counterproductive” and that he was doing damage to the cities’ tourism income.

He hadn’t thought much of it back then, just the establishment trying to cover its ass. But it’d been three days, and there had been even more tries to get him to stop publishing. Sure, doing the news was quite different from his usual fare, but that just meant he’d become more of a journalist, and less of a blogger. And although he’d often said that stuffy old journalist should get with the times, he was secretly quite happy with his newfound status. Some government pressure probably just came with the job.

Right now, he was writing about something that happened last night. Appearantly local vigilante Horn had accosted a poor working-class man just trying to provide for his family, and flung him into the lake. This, of course, showed clearly how the errors of capitalism lead to government violence against the less fortunate. Somehow.

He only needed to figure out how an independent vigilante that had problems with the law was somehow an agent of the government. Maybe he could get some inspiration from Aleph theories. Chemtrails? Too obvious, and there weren’t enough airports around. Russian spies trying to undermine the Protectorate? Could be, but he needed something better.

Maybe something about how the only female parahumans in the city were either a drug lord or a little kid, and that meant the parahuman patriarchy was keeping them down? Or he could go back to the good old classics and say that all Protectorate heroes were vigilantes before becoming official was cool.

The problem, of course, was that being a hipster was cool nowadays, and Henry didn’t really want anything to do with anything popular. Except now he was popular.

Maybe he could grab his camera and get some soundbites? Cover up the flaws in his argumentation by letting people on the street reach the conclusion for him? He’d have to ask Sely to help him again, and she’d apparently been sick in her bed all day. But he couldn’t do it on his own, because Sely still had his, rather expensive, camera somewhere.

Maybe Annabelle could help him? He could make it a date. Was that romantic? Interviewing people?

He started typing, getting the article ready for insertion of a video.

The problem with having a website instead of being a more legitimate journalistic outlet, was that he’d have to take the pages he’d typed on his typewriter, and then re-type them on his laptop. Still, a small price to pay for being hip and trendy enough to use antiquated and useless equipment. And it went DING!, which was always nice.

*** Henry ***

After typing up his piece, he’d gotten some takeaway artisan vegetarian meat-lovers pizza. And a machiatto di tutti de mare of course, but that went without saying. He’d eaten it in his green bio-gas car, while making his way to Annabelle’s place.

Once there, he found Annabelle in a state of distress. She couldn’t find Sely, even though she had been sick in her room all day. When she went up to Sely’s room to ask if she was coming down for dinner, she’d found her bed empty.

“She’s probably just hanging out with friends or something” He said. Sely did that every now and then, just go out for a bit. She’d come back in a few hours. The girl could take care of herself, very much unlike Annabelle. He loved her dearly, but the woman was a mess. Her previous boyfriend had been abusive, and had driven Sely to run away. She’d come back, perfectly all-right of course. The real problem was what it’d done to Annabelle. She barely kept it together. She forgot where she put stuff, she’d break her electronics and then forget that she’d done it, she blamed the neighbour, and she wouldn’t even let her daughter use the internet anymore. In Henry’s eyes, anyone who would discipline a child by taking away her internet access was a little disturbed in the head, it was just too cruel.

Still, when it was just the two of them, she was incredibly sweet. When Annabelle went for something, she did so with all her passion, and what she was going for, was her relationship with him.

Annabelle looked at him, “I guess it will be all right, I hope. But I’m a good mother, how can I not know where my child is?”

The good mother thing again. It wasn’t that Annabelle was abusive or anything, it was just… it was like she didn’t have the time for her daughter. It wasn’t her job, she only worked part-time, it was just that there was always something more important that came up. Dates with him, going shopping, hanging out with friends, eating out The only time she’d pay attention to her daughter was when she could find nothing else to do. But, he’d never heard Sely complain, so that was probably all right with her.

“So, do you want to go out? Help me interview some people in the city?” He asked. “Maybe we can find Sely in the city centre?”

That helped, her face looked less sad now. She seemed enthusiastic at the prospect at spending the evening together, just the two of them, and the total strangers they interviewed.

He made his way to Sely’s room, trying to find his camera. Ah, there it was, on her desk. A few of the access panels had been screwed open, the little rascal probably wanted to find out how it worked on the inside, but it still worked perfectly fine, better even.

Then, he went back down to get Annabelle, who had by now almost forgotten her woes at her missing daughter. This would take her mind of her troubles, and help his blog as well.

 

*** Henry ***

It had gotten quite late, but they’d gotten some great footage. People in the city theorized that Horn was secretly working for Mexican immigration cartels, that he was actually Alexandria gone undercover in the seedy underbelly of the city, and that he was simply a misunderstood man who wanted to improve his community. All of them were theories that made his article about how he was working for the man to keep the little folk down much more believable in comparison.

The problem, however, was that the power in the city had just gone off.

“Do you know what’s happening? Henry? I’m scared, it’s dark.” Annabelle said, hugging herself tightly to him.

“It’s allright sweety, just a power outage.”

He looked around, no-one was panicking. Sure, it was dark, but cellphones could be used as a makeshift flashlight, and the power would probably be back in a couple of hours. “Shall we get back home? Sely will probably be scared to be alone in the house in the dark.”

“Okay” Annabelle replied.

*** Henry ***

Sely hadn’t been home, and the power hadn’t come back on. Furthermore, there had been some sort of crazy parahuman fight in town, at about the moment he and Annabelle had decided to go back home.

Luckily, Henry still had his typewriter. Right now, not only was the most popular journalist in town, he was also the only one still capable of writing.

The problem being, of course, that they didn’t have internet to upload anything he’d written.

Right now, he and Annabelle were in the hospital. Annabelle was there because she worked as an administrative worker, he was there because the place had its own generator, and thus, light.

Ann was working with the rest of the hospital staff on coordinating the treatment of all the recently wounded people. The town had gone even more crazy. Several buildings had been destroyed in a fight between Horn and Hallucca, including the Radley building in the middle of town, which had melted into a puddle. Hallucca had, according to the rumor mill, been unmasked, although people weren’t quite agreeing on who she was. She had also, quite clearly, won. The lobby of the small city hospital was filled people who had come to the hospital out of fear, taking up resources meant for the sick and wounded.

So, that’s what Henry had been writing about. The events in the city, the amount of people wounded by what was happening, he only needed internet, and a computer, and then he could publish what he had, and be an even more famous journalist.

Some coffee would be nice too. A Lungo di frappucini la mocha, black, with extra sugar.

And maybe if those people making a ruckus at the hospital entrance would calm down.

Wait, a ruckus at the entrance? Maybe it was newsworthy? Henry chose to go look what it was all about, and was shocked when he saw the mayor, accompanied by several, well, minions, for lack of better word. A few of them were professional looking men and women, one of them he recognized as the mayor’s aide that wanted him to change his articles. Then there were a few, well, hooligans. The type of lower class poor oppressed person that looked really fucking scary with a spiked baseball bat.

“Greetings, loyal populace” The mayor said. And what Henry saw when he took a better look at her, and the people immediately surrounding him, truly spooked him. Those weren’t people, they were clothing store dummies, walking around.

So the rumour that the mayor had been Hallucca, was true.

She continued, once people had started paying attention to her. “It is I, your rightful ruler. I have decided that the time for subterfuge is over. From now on, you will serve me with your life. You live only by my mercy, you breathe only by my mercy, and you shit only because I allow it. Do you understand!?”

Everyone went silent, not sure what to do about this. Had she gone insane? Why were these people armed? Why wasn’t the mayor wearing any shoes?

Then, one of the onlookers decided to speak up, and say what they were all thinking.”Are you insane?”

He shouldn’t have said that. Hallucca looked at him, and started talking again. “Insane? Insane? You think I am insane? You dare talk to me like that? You dare fucking speak to me?” The man’s clothes started changing colour, and texture. The legs of his pants started twisting, constricting around him. He screamed, blood pouring from the bottom of his pants. Then, he fell over, his legs no longer capable of holding his body up.

Hallucca looked over the rest of them. “Does anyone else want to question my authority?”

Quite obviously, no-one did.

*** Henry ***

The hospital had an office, that office had a printer. That printer, was working for Henry.

Good old-fashioned resistance publishing. He’d made pamphlets, denouncing the mayor, their new ‘LORD AND MASTER’. Then, he was going to spread them all over town.

Ann, in the meantime, was making a fuss about Sely being missing. The girl had probably just found some other place to take refuge, there was no reason to believe she was hurt or in trouble. Still, one of his rival journalists had talked to her about it, a guy from the next city over. He’d come in by car, and asked people about what exactly was going on. The fool, the real money was in a popular uprising against their new overlord, not in investigative reporting.

He looked over his pamphlets, masterfully crafted, inspired by old WWII propaganda posters. They were amazing, and would tell the people who their new/old ruler really was, and who to go to for hard-hitting journalism against her tyrranic regime.

They looked amazing, the only thing he’d have to do now was spread them around town. Thing is, he was tired, and hadn’t slept all night. Besides that, there were other problems. The drinking water was contaminated, and it was getting harder to find things that were safe to drink. Two birds with one stone. He could give the pamphlets to the people looking for water to spread around town, that way, everyone would read them!

*** Henry ***

He should not have done that. Everyone in town had read his pamphlets, including Hallucca. She’d come for him, at the hospital, which now had neither windows nor parking lot, let alone power. He wasn’t quite sure what else had happened, he ran the moment he heard Hallucca was looking for him. He’d managed to make his way home through the ruined city.

People were patrolling, the water was being hoarded by people selling it for ridiculous prices, half the buildings were destroyed. His apartment complex was still okay, for now. He looked over his stuff, he’d have to get out of town quickly, if Hallucca was after him. But what to bring?

Eventually, he decided on taking some clothes, his bank statements, his typewriter and his original Sumatran coffee machine, which for some reason said M.I.C. on the bottom.

He hiked his bag on his shoulder, grabbed his mountain-bike and helmet, and made his way out of town as fast as he could. Not that fast, after all, the typewriter was quite heavy, but fast enough. Unless they used a car, Hallucca’s people wouldn’t be able to find him and get retribution for the pamphlets.

Late in the evening, when he’d arrived in a nearby town not under Hallucca’s control, his thought went out to his girlfriend. Would Hallucca take out her anger on Annabelle, or even Sely, if she couldn’t find him? Probably not, right?


	17. Chapter 17

Gadget 3.4  
The guy that grabbed me was, all in all, nice about it. Sure, he’d taken me prisoner for no reason, but he wasn’t a dick about it. At first, he just pushed me forward to where he wanted to go, but when he figured out in what kind of state I was, and in what kind of state my shoes were, he’d decided to just lift me up and carry me over his shoulder like a bag of flour. It was… rather uncomfortable, but not as bad as having to walk around blind in the state I was in.

That did mean, however, that I had no idea where we were going. And he wasn’t talking much on that front either. He’d said “I’m sorry” and “I really don’t want to do this but I have to” a couple of times, but that felt really hollow given that he was kidnapping me.

After a while, he set me down. “We’re not there yet… I’m just sort of tired…” He said. At that, I cheered up.

“But not too tired to use my taser” He continued. Aaaand there went my happy mood. I wasn’t quite sure what he was doing, but he kept one hand on my shoulder, and with the other he was doing… something. A few seconds later I figured it out, he was drinking something, probably a water bottle. That got my mouth watering. Drat, I really didn’t want to owe this guy anything, but now that I thought about it, I was kind of thirsty.

“Can I have some?” I said, hoping he’d agree to my request.

“Sorry girl, I only have so much money to spend.”

Really, that was his excuse? It was water, cheapest liquid around… Still, I wasn’t going to beg from this guy. He was the type of mall-cop that couldn’t even stop a gaggle of seniors. Literally.

After a minute or so, I heard footsteps coming, and some people chatting. One of the patrols? They came closer, and started talking to the asshole that was holding me.

“Mister Gardner, I see you’ve caught another teenager. Rebellion against her majesty’s authority again I presume?”

“Nothing that small this time Sir, I’ve brought something big Sir.”

“I see, well, you can hand her over to me, I’ll make sure she gets to her majesty safe and sound.”

Her majesty? Seriously? Psycho-mayor was calling herself majesty? Was she insane?

Stupid question, of course she was.

“No need sir, I can handle the girl on my own, I wouldn’t want to waste your time on something like this, I know a man as important as you are must be very busy.”

Well, my captor knew how to kiss ass alright.

“Yes, yes, of course. Johnson, escort them to the tertiary hideout, then find her majesty.”

“Sure thing boss.” A new voice replied. This one sounding a lot less… sophisticated, I guess the word was.

The sophisticated sounding man, done with the conversation, exchanged some more pleasantries with my captor, Mister Gardner apparently, and left with most of his group.

The only one remaining was Johnson. I knew this, not because I could see him, or because he said anything. No, I knew because I could smell him. He smelled like something rotten. No, that wasn’t the right description. It was more like, he smelled like the idea of rotting itself. Was he one of the people who got powers from the drugs? Or did he have real powers? For once, I was kind of happy I was wearing a blindfold, I could only imagine from what kind of mouth that smell could come.

“Well then, here we go” Gardner said, grabbing me by my waist and throwing me over his shoulder again. The second part of our little trip was even more uncomfortable, given the smell, and the fact that Gardner was walking faster now that he had to follow someone.

Every time he moved my, my body hurt, and I thought about how to escape. Still, the problem was that I simply didn’t know how. I could try something with my powers, summon some sort of stabby slicey tool, use a power saw to cut through my handcuffs somehow, but then what. I was in no state to run far, there were patrols everywhere, I had no weapons, and people would figure out I was the girl that had thrown Hallucca’s drugs in the lake quite quickly. I wasn’t quite sure why Gardner had taken me, but given the time-frame, I was pretty sure it wasn’t because he thought I was Horn’s ‘little assistant’. Thus, they probably didn’t know yet, and whatever Hallucca wanted from the ‘little assistant’, it was probably not as bad as what he wanted from my cape persona.

Regarding that, I’d settled on Gadget as a name. My power was, basically, creating Gadgets, but the problem was telling other people my cape name. What I wanted to do was stay in the shadows, steal what I needed, and not have anyone know enough about me to go after me. But, if no-one knew about me, no-one would know who I was. You couldn’t get famous as a master thief if you never got caught.

Maybe I should leave some sort of calling card. Some sort of sign that it was me that did it. That would make me famous. But, if I got famous, people would go after me. But, if I didn’t get any recognition because no-one knew about me, what would be the point. You know, besides the massive amounts of loot.

*** Gadget ***

Once we’d arrived at the ‘tertiary’ hideout, Gardner had put me down on some sort of couch or something, before chaining my leg to something. He didn’t take of the blindfold, and my hands were still tied behind my back, but at least I could finally sit down, sort of.

I don’t know how long I was there, only that it was way too long and way to boring. If only I had some sort of lenses that could detect wavelengths of light that could pass through the blindfold. That’d work, except because those wavelengths didn’t translate exactly… maybe I could translate a single wavelength instead of a wide spectrum? See the world in ultraviolet black and white? That’d help. Or infrared, see heat through this thing, see people? Or maybe do it so one eye saw infrared, the other ultraviolet, with two different lenses?

While thinking about how the hell to connect a power source, I heard something. Or rather, I didn’t hear anything. There’d been people walking around in the background ever since I got here, talking, laughing, yelling, and making weird noises I couldn’t quite recognize. And right now, they all stopped. After half a minute or so, I could hear a conversation between Gardner and someone else, A female voice I sort of recognized. Hallucca?

After another minute or so, the talking stopped, and I could hear high-heeled footsteps coming towards me. Tock tock tock tock. The sound of impending doom. There was a rhythm to it, to her walking. To all walking in heels really. Could I do something with that? Catch the frequency of the sound-source and get information from that? Like a police siren that changed tone? The tock’s themselves were stationary, but I could probably get around that problem somehow, using a few more advanced tricks. Then, I could create an algorithm that perfectly tracked the location and velocity of any and all high-heeled women walking on floors within hearing range.

While I was thinking about the tracking system, the blindfold fell away. I looked, and saw Hallucca, the mayor, sitting in a chair in front of me. Looking at me. She seemed angry, frustrated, but somehow in control. Both in general, and of herself. She was wearing a weirdly anachronistic outfit. It sort of looked like a suit, but the colours were wrong, white, blue, gold. I could see a fur trim behind her head. I could see the same symbol that Gardner had worn, the French flower thingy.

Behind her stood some sort of minion, it sort of looked like the deranged mannequins she had with her before, but made out of metal, and less deformed. They didn’t move, and looked like they were statues or something, incapable of moving at all.

The room itself looked nice. It looked like it was some rich guys’ living room just a few days ago. Way too much glass furniture, but a big TV screen. That, and it had very few windows, usually, rich houses had a lot of those, it was ‘hip’ and ‘trendy’ to have floor to roof glass instead of walls, but not here.

I wondered why Hallucca was looking at me. Was she going to hurt me? I felt her gaze sweep over me, looking at my face, my clothes, then my feet. They weren’t as cold as they were before, the house was somehow still warm, but they kind of hurt. In the end, she looked sharply at my sleeve. The arm I’d cut open on the garbage container. My makeshift bandage hadn’t done the job, and the sleeve was getting a red tint. As I watched, the thread started unraveling. It wasn’t that he original thread came out of it. More like, new threads were pulled out of the overall material, and the overall mass was shifting into that. Her power was weird and scary.

I looked away from my arm, back at the mayor. She had an intense gaze in her eyes. She looked somehow stable, but also not. She didn’t notice, and was placing all her attention on my arm. She reminded me of an alligator. Perfectly calm, until something happened and she sprang into action in a crazy frenzy. Ready to rampage at a moment’s notice.

I looked back at my arm. My bandage had been removed, and new cloth had been winding itself around my arm. Suddenly, the wound started stinging, and I winced a little.

At that, Hallucca stood up and walked toward me. She squatted, a little bit, not enough to bring her head level with mine, but still coming closer. Her right hand reached forward, and held my face. Her fingers were cold, from being outside, and they felt wet too.

“There is no need to cry, little one” She said.

I wasn’t sure what she meant by that. I was fourteen-and-a-half, and I didn’t cry. Only stupid little girls cried. And, now that I thought about it, Dad had also cried a little when I had visited him. Just a little though, he was a grown-up man.

But me, no, I wasn’t crying. I never cried.

She waited a few minutes. I could feel the handcuffs keeping my hands behind me opening, my hands once again free. My leg was still chained to the couch I was sitting on, but it was definitely an improvement.

While I was rubbing my wrists, which were red from the handcuffs, the mayor’s left hand reached forward as well, messing with my hair. Eventually, when she was done with whatever she was doing, she looked me in the eyes again, I had no idea what kind of expression was on her face, it was like she wanted three different things at once. One hand still caressed my face, even though she was dangerous, it felt kind of nice, comforting. Mom didn’t do stuff like that.

She spoke, slowly, thinking carefully about her choice of words. “Tell me, child, how are you related to Henry Watson, the...”She was about to say something when she thought better of it, and started anew. “the journalist and insurgent.”

Wait, Henry? What did she want with Henry? I thought she was after me, or, at least, Gadget. What did she want with Henry? And what exactly did insurgent mean again? Had he sold her faulty insurance or something? No, that didn’t make any sense, Henry was a journalist, and there was no such thing as insurance for supervillains. Probably.

Now how was I going to reply to her? Truthfully? Maybe, at least partly. If she got angry, I could just tell her I hated him, she’d probably like that right? Which meant she wouldn’t hurt me.

“I… Uhmmm… He’s, like, my mom’s new boyfriend.”

She thought about my answer for a bit, then removed her hand from my face. “I need to know something young lady.” She said, she sounded more like a school-teacher than a supervillain. “I need you to give me an honest answer. I’ll know if you lie, I have that power. Do you understand?”

Wait, she had lie detection powers too? Or was she bluffing? But calling her on it if it wasn’t a bluff would be a really bad idea.

“Yes miss.” I replied.

Her hand went up again, quickly this time, she pointed a correcting finger at me. “Yes your majesty, is the correct way to address me.”

Really? She was going with that? Still, I was in no position to protest.

“Yes your majesty” I repeated.

She looked happy at that, she probably wasn’t doing the majesty thing to cultivate some sort of aura of authority, but instead just because she really liked it when people called her that.

“Now then, where do your loyalties lie young lady? Do they lie with me, your rightful queen, or with the traitor Henry, like your mother.”

That shocked me. My mother? What had happened to her? Had she been loyal to Henry, whatever that meant? Was she alright? Or, at least, still alive? I knew we didn’t have a very good relationship, but I didn’t want her to get hurt. Still, it hadn’t been the first time that one of her boyfriends had come to bit her in the ass, but, if she was hurt. What the hell was I going to answer. I just didn’t want to get hurt, but if I didn’t give her the right answer she’d hurt me, and if I lied to give the right answer she’d also hurt me.

Halucca grabbed something from a pocket, a handkerchief of some sort, which she used to gently rub at my face. The handkerchief was damp, had it already been used?

I had to admit, I kind of like this gentle side of the crazy maniac in front of me. Fucked up as she was, it felt somehow, well. I wasn’t sure what word to use. It didn’t remind me of my mother, it was more like my dad, but also not. They were both weird about it, but dad just because he didn’t really know me and was kind of a let-down, while this woman was being weird because she was a crazy parahuman supervillain.

I wasn’t sure of anything? Was I loyal to Henry? No. I liked his camera, and he was better than mom’s last boyfriend, but ultimately, he was just some guy that would be gone in a month or two.

But loyal to Hallucca? What would that even mean? She was kind of nice right now, but at the same time also completely terrifying. Maybe she couldn’t detect a lie if I sort of skirted around it? Phrase it uncertainly? I had no idea how her hypothetical lie detection power worked.

“I guess if I had to choose I’d be loyal to you your majesty.” Was my answer. It was true, sort of. Right now, the choice where I chose to be loyal to her was superior, so that’d be my choice if I had to choose. Would that work?

Hallucca smiled, not the crazy smile you’d expect from a supervillain that had taken over the city. Then, she hugged me for some reason.

I guess she believed me?


	18. Chapter 18

Gadget 3.5

“Well then sweetie, let’s see what I can do for you.” The woman said. She looked to be about thirty, thirty-five years old. She had a smile on her face, but not a nice one. It looked like the smile of someone pretending to be happy. A fake smile plastered on her face so long it just decided to stay there.

After hugging me for some reason, ‘Queen Paige’ had ordered someone to bring me to this woman, including some sort of remark about what kind of cup I was bearing. Was this woman going to get me a bra? Still, she seemed nice enough, and I liked being able to walk around.

That was it though, I couldn’t do much more. There were still some guards here. People with guns, and some of the semi-powered variety. Not many though, it seemed like most of them were constantly patrolling the city.

“First of all, let’s get you out of those unbecoming clothes you’re wearing shall we?” She said, still smiling.

Me, I wasn’t smiling. Paige’s absurd behaviour, the guards, my mom, the fact that I was quickly getting sick, and then that, apparently, I was going to have to strip, didn’t make for a good mood.

The fake-smile in front of me saw my apprehension, and took a look at the few guards standing around. We were in some sort of high-end clothing store turned supply room. “Go on then, turn around you guys, It’s not polite to stare at a lady like that.”

They obeyed her, and turned around, while the woman in front of me started helping me out of the hoodie. Below that, I wore a shirt that was becoming rather wet and dirty with sweat these last few days, and then, well, you know.

Inspecting a few of the burns on my arm, she decided to take away my shirt as well. I tried to protest, but she was rather forceful about it, and I wasn’t really in any state to stop her.

Once that was done, she started on my burns. Stinging disinfectant, followed by a rather professional looking bandage around the worst ones, and fancy band-aids on the smaller burns. It hurt, but the real problem was the cold. The front of the store we were in wasn’t exactly what you would call intact.

“Almost done young missus, now, let’s get you your new outfit.” She said, before running to a rack of weird-looking clothes.

Should I ask her a question? What would she do if I asked the wrong question? Not saying anything unless absolutely necessary was starting to feel like a pretty good idea lately, but I did want to know what was going to happen.

She returned with a frilly piece of white cloth, and a measurement tape. When she started measuring my sizes, I decided to start asking questions.

“Why does the Mayor want my cup size?”

She looked at me, fear and shock in her eyes. Then, she recovered her fake smile again.

“Well sweety, you should know better, because Queen Bourbon doesn’t want your cup size, she wants you to bear cups.”

Okay… What the hell did that mean? How were baby bears involved? Had Horn punched some? I also couldn’t help but notice the way she said the words Queen Bourbon, as if it was important that she said those specific words, and not just Hallucca. That was stupid, she wasn’t here right? So she didn’t have to kiss her ass.

Or did Hallucca have super-hearing as well? In addition to her lie detection powers? Then I had just made a mistake.

Once she was done with my measurements, she started working on the piece of cloth. It looked fancy, but a bit old fashioned. There was an intricate lace pattern to it.

From how she was working, it didn’t look like she did this professionally, more like a hobby thing. She was rushing the job right now, as I could see from the times she pricked herself with a needle. I wondered what her job was before the entire city went crazy. Not seamstress, probably? What kind of job would give you a fake smile like that.

Now that I thought about it, that could probably be almost any job. Waitress, Service Desk Phone Person Thing, Receptionist, Secretary, Mascot at abandoned Theme Park.

It was probably that last one, she kind of looked like a deranged costumed animal thing that didn’t move when you hit it with your flashlight.

Which, you know, would be cool.

A flashlight that made people freeze that is, not a deranged mascot thing. It’d probably sing some sort of weird freaky song.

So how the hell would I freeze people, and Theme Park Mascots, with a flashlight? The easiest way would be to fuck around with time or something, but I had no idea how to do that.

Maybe some sort of forcefield projector that just filled everything with forcefield particles, or whatever forcefields were made out of? Stop everything from moving?

But then I could just make some sort of containment foam thingy.

That said, Invisible containment foam sounded like it could be absolutely hilarious. From what I’d seen of it on the internet, there were quite a few different things you could do with it besides imprison people.

Once again, I was pretty sure I was the best damned Tinker in the world, Dragon sure as hell didn’t have invisible containment foam. Sure, I didn’t either, but that was only a matter of time, probably, maybe, hopefully.

Or, maybe, Dragon did have invisible containment foam, and no-one knew because it was invisible. If that was the case, I’d have to rob her blind. That would mean she couldn’t see her invisible containment foam anymore.

So, first step, how was I going to get to Canada? I was pretty sure Dragon lived in Canada. Could I steal another car and drive there? Probably, I just had to go North and I’d reach Canada. But then…

I was pretty sure Canada didn’t have roads, after all, they had mounties because cars wouldn’t work. And dragon had flying suits too, so she wouldn’t be bothered by all the polar bears.

But then, I distinctly remembered Canada also had cities. So did they have roads in the cities? Probably, It wouldn’t make any sense not to have roads in cities. Then what would be in between the buildings? And how did normal people who weren’t mounties or owners of giant robot-suits get around? Did they all have horses? Teleporter networks? Or did they just drive off-road? Maybe they all had Monster Trucks instead of normal cars.

But Monster Trucks were an American thing, they all had giant flags and stuff.

“Penny for your thoughts?” The smiling woman interrupted.

She was holding her hands behind her back, carrying something she was keeping from my sight. Was this a test? Was she going to do something if I didn’t tell her what I was thinking? If I was thinking the wrong things? No, probably not, she didn’t seem like the type. Still, it couldn’t hurt to be careful.

“Do you think everyone in Canada has a horse?” I replied.

She looked at me with a weird look in her eyes, before holding a hand to my forehead and mumbling something to herself. Once she had reassured herself, she answered “Of course not silly, they ride around on Mooses, Meese, whatever the word for more than one is. Now, close your eyes please. It’ll be more fun that way.”

I wondered what her definition of fun was. Mine didn’t include closing my eyes and getting a surprise from a total stranger.

Still, Moose, I should’ve thought of that. They were big, could probably hold a whole family.

When I didn’t close my eyes, the woman wagged a finger at me. “Close your eyes girl, or do I need to tell the queen you didn’t listen?”

So, yeah, closing my eyes seemed like a much better idea now.

When I closed my eyes, the woman started pulling something over my head, probably the outfit she’d just made for me. It was a bit tight, form fitting. Not something that felt like I could run around in it, but not all that uncomfortable either. When she was done, she grabbed me by the shoulders and guided me around to some place.

“Open your eyes!” She said, her voice cheerful and proud.

I opened my eyes, and saw I was standing in front of a mirror. The first thing I noticed was my face. I had bruising around my ear, and some red strips, probably from a branch I ran into last night. My eyes were red from exhaustion. Then, I noticed my hair.

The last year or so, I’d dyed the tips of a few strands of hair every now and then, with whatever colour I felt like. I was pretty sure that, right now, I was supposed to have some red, some black, an iron metallic looking bit, and one on the side that was striped, both white and blue.

Mom hated it when I did it, said it would ruin my hair and that it made me look like a tramp. When I retorted that fucking a different guy every month also made you look like a tramp, she’d grounded me.

Spending all day indoors however, meant that I only had more time to experiment. Also, I didn’t wear my hair long like she did, so even if I goofed up, it’d grow back in a bit anyway.

The problem, however, was that they were currently missing. My hair was just its normal blonde colour. Not only that, I was also pretty sure it was longer than the last time I looked in the mirror, which was yesterday. What the hell had happened to it? Did my power make my hair grow?

Once I was done looking at my own face, I inspected the clothes I was now wearing. From the beginning of my torso, down to just below the knees, the fabric was solid white. It looked and felt like it was high quality, soft but sturdy. Around my neck, there was a thick lace pattern. It felt warm, covering my neck like that. That reminded me, my Christmas present, the big, long, warm, shawl/scarf my dad had given me. It had still been in my room when I left… Did that mean it was gone now? Had Hallucca…

This wasn’t the time to think about that, I didn’t want to think about that.

I looked at my arms. From the shoulder downwards, my sleeves were also made out of the same white lace pattern. When I looked closely, I could see the same weird sign on it that I’d seen all day, some French flower thing that was on the really old flags, I remembered that from some of the games I’d played.

The smiling Theme-Park Woman had walked of, and was rummaging through a drawer somewhere. When she returned, she had knee-high white socks, and some high-heeled shoes with her.

No, she wouldn’t. Not that, I hated that. The last time I’d tried, I’d fallen over while standing up to go to the bathroom in a restaurant. I’d been covered with spaghetti sauce, and twisted my ankle at the same time. The guy that was mom’s boyfriend back then, I couldn’t even remember his name, had been some rich guy, and insisted that my mother bring me along. He hadn’t been too bad, but mom had gotten really angry at me that I couldn’t behave myself, shouting at me in front of everyone that I kept ruining stuff for her. It’d only gotten worse when the guy discretely broke up with her at the end of the evening. I’d really fucked up that day.

But yes, the heels were apparently for me. They weren’t that high, but still. How could people walk around in those all day. They were uncomfortable, they looked stupid, and they made way too much noise.

While I was trying to put off wearing the shoes for as long as possible, a man in a suit walked into the building. He looked at the Mascot-woman, and spoke. “Is she ready?”

I recognized the voice, it was the guy leading the patrol that Gardner had run into when he was carrying me around.

The woman, meanwhile, snapped to attention. “Yes sir she’s all wrapped up sir.”

So this guy was a bigshot around here. I wondered what he wanted with me. Hell, I wondered what anyone wanted from me. It would be really nice to figure that out.

He walked forward, towards me. His suit looked expensive. He had a really fancy golden pen in his chestpocket, fancy rings on his fingers, and a belt-buckle made of what looked to be silver of something. I could also see a bulge at the side of his suit-jacket. A gun, or some other weapon. His hair was short, oiled, like something you’d see in that weird show about the fifties and rich people.

He looked at my feet, expectandly. I looked at the hidden gun again, and quickly put on the shoes.

He turned around, and put a hand over my shoulder, gently pushing me forward to walk alongside him. It hurt, he had his hand over one of my burns, but I kept the pain from reaching my face. I was far more focused on not falling over. Damn high heels, seriously.

When we were outside of the building, a few of the guards were starting to walk along with us.

“No need,” he said to them. “ I can handle one girl. Go drink some water, the good stuff.”

At that, they went off, leaving the two of us alone.

“Well then young lady, let’s have us a little talk shall we?” He said, looking at me.

I wasn’t sure how to respond, and fell back on what had helped me before, I remained silent.

“You see, our dear Miss Mayor seems to have taken a liking to you. Now, I don’t know how you’ve done it, but I can still use it. You see, used to be, in this town, everyone knew their place, and everyone did as they were told. The criminals worked for Hallucca, the law-abiding people worked for the Mayor, and everyone profited from the situation. Sure, there was crime, but it was under control. The criminals didn’t get ideas above their station, and stayed in their little trailer parks. The hard-working folk were left alone to make money, and in return, whenever someone overdosed or got stabbed, he’d get free healthcare in the hospital.”

His voice was slick, like a salesman. I wondered what his job had been. Probably something where he talked a lot, he seemed to be enjoying himself, while I was trying not to stumble.

“Now you see, the thing about Miss Bourbon, is that she’s always had two sides to her. Like a coin, you see?” I nodded, not quite sure where he was going with this, but not wanting to interrupt him either. “On one hand, we have the honourable mayor, stalwart keeper of order, chairwoman of three different charities. On the other hand, we have Hallucca. A character that is, by working of her gifts, by definition deluded. Now, and this is important young lady, it might save your life, The thing is, she used to be able to switch. One moment she was the mayor, then, she takes a pill, and she becomes the fearsome Hallucca. Like Doctor Jeckyll. Now, the thing is, something went wrong. She had, what I believe is called a ‘second trigger’. An event so traumatizing that someone with powers gets powers again. You might wonder, dear child, why this is relevant for you, and I shall tell you.”

By Scion this guy loved hearing himself talk. Still, It was quite interesting. Was there some sort of Doctor that had given Hallucca powers because of drugs? Was she like the pill-maker? Or was Doctor Jeckyll a reference to something?

“In her mind, power and delusion are one and the same thing. And what happened, is that she now has constant control over her power. Thus, at the same time, I believe that this has caused her delusions to be constant as well. They are more defined, controllable, like her power, but they are also always there. Understand this girl. She is not pretending to be queen of Westlake, she is the queen of Westlake. And if you oppose her, she will crush you, like she crushed all opponents in the last two days. So too, does she believe me, her chief advisor, to be her loyal general. Thus, when she is near, that is how you shall address me. Do you understand?” I nodded my head. Call the guy with the hair general, I could remember that.

“Now you, young lady, are the daughter of her greatest enemy. I know what you’re going to say, he’s not your father, but it doesn’t matter. You see, who this enemy is is not important, It will change according to the situation. Your position however, does not.”

I thought about that. If this guy was right, her delusions seemed to be rather extensive. Was that her power, having broken something in her mind? And if she thought I was the daughter of her enemy, then why did she like me? That gave me an idea.

“So, she likes me because I’m the daughter of her enemy that now serves her?”

“Yes, very good, you’re starting to understand. Now let’s talk about your role in this. Paige wants you as her cupbearer. What that means, is that you will stand at her side, and whenever she wants something, you will hand it to her. You will not speak until spoken to, you will not complain and you will not move unless ordered to. Do you understand?”

That… sounded like a really boring job. Still, it was better than sitting blindfolded with my hands bound behind my back.

*** Gadget ***

Eventually, we arrived at the place where Hallucca was supposed to be. It was a house similair to the one I’d been kept in earlier. On one side of the room, a single chair stood, as some sort of throne or something. On the other side, there were several smaller chairs and a couch. The man, “O’Neill’, he introduced himself, showed me to a table at the side of the room, and a minifridge. Hallucca was going to sit in the throne, and I was to bring her whatever she wanted to have. When he was done explaining, he left me alone in the room. I looked around.There were a lot of little trinkets and other such things lying around, but I had a problem. The dress I was currently wearing didn’t have any pockets, and it was too tight a fit to hide stuff in other places. And If I Blueprinted it, I wouldn’t be able to do anything fun with it.

I grabbed a bottle of water, and enjoyed the warmth of the room together with the refreshing drink. I was a fancy goblet, probably Hallucca’s, and a pitcher. If I remembered right from all the movies I’d watched, then wine would go into the pitcher from the bottle, then from the pitcher into the glass, and from the glass into someone’s face. Sometimes by drinking, sometimes by throwing. The movies with throwing were usually better.

*** Gadget ***

I woke up, and stood up from the couch. Only half-falling over. There was a commotion outside, and I could hear people yelling “Yes your majesty”.

Hallucca was here again. I quickly walked to the table where the drinks were, getting ready. Hallucca walked in, obviously distraught. Her hair was a mess, and there was dust on her dress.

After her came several other people, some wounded, others just tired.

Hallucca sat down in her throne, and waited for the others to sit down. When the others sat, she started, shouting.

“Why the fuck are there powered invaders in my city!”

She was livid, her face was red. The other people in the room were nervous. None of them willing to be the first to speak. I could see O’Neill sitting at the back, not as nervous as the rest.

“Are you all so incompetent you cannot answer my question?” Hallucca went on.

One of the people started saying something. “My queen I apologize my queen but they’re the Protectorate my queen. They’re here to arrest you your majesty!”

Hallucca became even more wild, she shouted again, spit flying out of her mouth with the words. “Arrested? Arrested? You cannot arrest a queen, do you insult me Robertus?” When she was talking, I could see her eyes focus in on the man. Specifically, his watch. The iron of his watch seemed to melt, and it started contracting, slowly crushing the bones beneath it. The man roared in agony, and I didn’t want to watch anymore. Instead, I looked at the table I was standing next to, and pretended to be busy. I uncorked the wine, the mechanism, with the little corkscrew, was rather interesting. Then, I filled a glass and the pitcher, and brought the glass to Hallucca, who was still shouting. Hopefully she’s be silent while drinking.

“M..M…Majes…Majesty?” I asked, hoping she wouldn’t lash out at me too. I wasn’t technically supposed to do this, O’Neill had told me to do nothing I wasn’t told to do, but it seemed like she could use a drink.

She turned to me, and looked at the glass I was holding out for her. Again, one hand cupped the side of my face, while the other took the glass from my hand. She looked, I wasn’t quite sure what the right word was. Guilty? Ashamed? She was calmer at least.

After a few seconds, she pointed at the ground a step behind and to the side of her throne, beckoning me to stand over there. Then, she returned to the people waiting for her. The guy she’d taken out her anger on was lying on the floor, but the rest was sitting on the various chairs and couches again, trying desperately to ignore the man.

“Well then, the invading army. Any ideas, general O’Neill?”


	19. Chapter 19

Gadget 3.6  
The rest of the meeting was rather interesting. They weren’t quite sure what was going on, but they’d lost a lot of manpower, as well as the water treatment plant. Hallucca had gone to rescue the plant, and had encountered Mirdirr, mhyrdhini, myrdy... wizard guy, and sjevalyay… I wasn’t even going to try his name. Anyway, Wizard and Sword had fought of Hallucca, and something else had taken down a lot of the patrols, probably Rodeo, I thought, given his powers.

The Queen had ordered her generals to come up with a plan of action, and the generals had kissed the queen’s ass to hide the fact that they couldn’t think of a plan. That made the queen happy, and the queen being happy made everyone in the room calm down.

Eventually, the meeting was over, and the queen started leaving, beckoning me to follow. As we left the room, the generals and other hanger-ons were starting to stand up and discuss amongst themselves. That I understood, class suddenly became interesting once the teacher left and you could goof around, but from what I could hear, they were talking tactics, not TV-shows. Why didn’t they do that before, in the actual meeting?

Hallucca’s heel clicked against the ground, and I looked at her again. She was waiting for me, a hand reaching out, more wine, I presumed. I poured some in the goblet I had with me, and made my way over there. Walking over the uneven brick sidewalk, I narrowly avoided stumbling and reached her, handing her the cup. She started slowly sipping, and looked around pensively.

It was a minute or two before she looked at me again, and said something.

“Tell me child, where do you wish to go?”

Another one of her weird questions I had no idea how to answer. What was she even asking? I really wanted to go home, but home was gone. I also wanted to go to Disneyland, but was pretty sure that wasn’t what she meant. The hospital, to check on mom? Or maybe back into the forest? I hadn’t expected my plot against Horn to go so well, and someone should probably check if he was alright.

Or maybe my hideout. The place where I stashed all the stuff that I couldn’t just BluePrint. Could I build something to get me out of this mess? Or should I go see if I could find the Protectorate, wizard-man and supersword? Or would they think I was working for the queen when they looked at my outfit.

Was I working for her now? Did that mean I was in trouble with the law? You know, for something other than the thefts?

I pondered for a bit. Maybe something of my scarf remained in the wreckage of my house? I’d like my scarf back, it was amazing. An exact Replica of Maggie Holt’s scarf, only bigger, and real, and my dad gave it to me. That had to be the best part of those books, Maggie had two dads, instead of my none. Beyond the present now and then…

Yeah, home sounded like a good idea.

“I.. I think I’d like to go home your majesty.”

She looked at me, then looked in the direction of my home. Again, she seemed to think about something intensely. This time looking in different directions, comparing something. What the hell was she doing. Why had she even asked me where I wanted to go? Was she going to let me go?

After another few minutes, she looked at me again, and said in that soft tone of hers: “Be a dear, go inside and bring General O’Neill.”

I looked at her, and nodded. Putting the jug of wine down, I ran inside.

At least, tried to run inside, these damned heels… I almost fell twice, but made it in one piece, walking slowly. Who the fuck had invented heels? Couldn’t have been a tinker.

Once inside, I made my way through the small crowd, which had grown in the time I’d been outside. More of the well-dressed people, less of the druggies. One of the new arrivals had several bruises on his face.

When I finally found O’Neill, he was talking to someone. I looked at the two of them. O’Neill was wearing an expensive suit, a golden pen sticking out of the little pocket in the front. I could also see what was probably a wallet in one of his pockets. The man he was talking to was similairly dressed, but was wearing a heavy jacket on top of his suit, he’d been outside. His face was red, and he was huffing and puffing, his glasses slowly sliding down his sweaty nose.

“And you’re sure they haven’t found the secondary system?” O’Neill said, in a hushed tone.

“Yes sir, removed it while H was keeping them busy, they don’t know a thing.”

“Good, and the western operation?”

“We only have a few survivors here sir, they were taken completely by surprise. However, they relocated at least a part of the profit before being caught.”

“Good, good.”

“About that sir, wouldn’t it be a better move to simply surrender? There’s no way H can beat this many capes, let alone veterans, Protectorate team leader.”

At the mention of surrender, O’Neil’s face became dark. He leaned forward, until they were very close, and whispered something in the other man’s ear. I couldn’t quite hear what.

Then, O’Neill turned to another new arrival, a junkie, his arms were misformed, bigger, sturdier than you’d expect.

“We caught her sir.” Was all he said.

“The lightning girl, I presume?”

Now that I looked, the junk had several weird burns, that could very well have been some sort of electro-attack. But lightning? From how they’d been talking, and the fact that she’d appearantly been caught, I presumed she wasn’t protectorate. Another junky with pill-powers then?

As they were discussing what to do with lightning girl, I coughed. Not to raise attention, just because I was starting to get sicker as the day went on. I guess my little moment of spy-craft was over.

I wondered, where there parahuman spies? People who, by night, wore spandex and ran around shooting lasers from their elbows, but by day, took on a secret identity and did spy stuff?

Although, these days, you didn’t really need external influence to destabilize countries. That tended to happen by itself.

I should really return my attention to the people in front of me though, instead of thinking about spies, and how kill-orders were kind of a reverse license to kill. Did the British have kill orders? And should I start talking now?

“Mister O’Neill, her majesty wants to talk to you.”

He looked at me, obviously annoyed at the interference. I could only hope he didn’t try to take it out on me.

“Lets go talk to her then.” He replied, walking outside.

I wondered… why did it seem like he was the real boss, and not the person they all called queen. Who was this lightning girl, and what kind of secondary operation were they running? Hallucca didn’t seem like the person to personally run a distraction to me, she was way too proud of herself the way she was right now. Had she known she was a distraction?

And why was O’Neill so opposed to people surrendering to the protectorate? They couldn’t really win, could they?

I decided to follow him, and made my way after him. I only tripped once on my way there, and that was because someone totally bumped into me.

Also the heels.

I caught up when they were discussing where to go.

“North, we’ll fortify ourselves in the high-school”, Hallucca said.

North… Directly opposite home, if I was correct about our current location.

 

*** Gadget ***

When we made our way there, the streets were remarkably empty, windows shut, lights off. It was starting to become evening. Luckily, it the walk to school wasn’t that far.

School, of course, being one of the buildings that were still perfectly intact. Just my luck.

Once we’d arrived, the queen claimed the teachers lounge. Lying down on one of the overly large couches. That was just like a teacher, forcing children to sit on shitty wooden chairs while being massive couch potato’s themselves.

Slowly, Hallucca started working on the surroundings. The school logo changing into the weird flower thing, ‘Fleur de lys’, Paige explained when she saw me looking at them. I wasn’t sure how that was an explanation, but she seemed assured that that was what I’d wanted to know.

She also made the lamp glow. Not by turning it on, but by changing it into something else, I wasn’t sure what. Her couch, too, became more and more comfortable.

I wondered what had happened to lightning girl, whomever that was. In fact, I didn’t even know if she was a girl, maybe she was a fat old lady parahuman. Did that happen? Did old people get powers? Were there secret league’s of underground senior capes, fighting over bingo rules or something?

Still, if she’d been taken prisoner, why hadn’t they brought her to Hallucca? Had they forgotten?

I thought back to the conversation I’d overheard earlier. Were they hiding it from Hallucca? If she knew about a cape opposing her, she’d probably personally take care of it, not leave it to her flunkies.

So why would they keep her a secret from Hallucca? To cover up a failure?

I wondered, why hadn’t any attacks on the west side of town come up in the earlier meeting? They’re only talked about gunblade and staffmaster. Just how much was O’Neill keeping secret from Paige? He’d obviously been her lieutenant once, when she was more lucid, and he knew how she worked. If anyone wanted to manipulate her, he was in the perfect position.

I thought about confronting Hallucca, but how would she react? She liked me right now, I knew that, but what would she do if I accused her General of keeping secrets from her? Would she believe me or him?

After an hour or so of thinking about the problem in my head, and sitting on the floor next to Hallucca’s couch in case she wanted something to drink, or needed someone to distract her away from torturing someone, fakeface macsmileypants came in. In her hand, several pizza’s, the frozen one’s they served in the cafeteria, heated up somehow.

After giving one to Paige, the woman took me aside.

“Hey sweetie, are you doing allright?” She asked, as if she really cared. She probably just asked so I would tell Paige that she was nice.

I still nodded, it’d be impolite not to reply, and maybe she would go away and give me my pizza.

“It’s good to see you safe and sound.” She said. “ I can’t believe what they did to that other girl.”

Other girl? Were they talking about Zapmistress? Or whatever her name was?

“What other girl?” I asked, quietly. Gesturing towards Paige, who was currently very busy praising her factory-made pizza.

“The cape girl… Emma…. He just kept hitting her…” She looked at me, fear coming over her face. “ look, forget I said anything… just… hold on for just a bit okay?”

I nodded, and she left again, leaving me to my pizza, and my revelation.

Emma was lightning-girl, and she was seriously hurt.

I needed to do something, I think. But… Hallucca. She was right here and… if she knew I was…

What the fuck was I supposed to do in a situation like this…

I could just let it be right… it wasn’t my fault…. Not my responsibility…

I’m only fourteen years old… I got kidnapped twice in three days… I was a villain...

But I knew Emma… Sort of…

The project had been fun... And she wasn’t a bitch like some people…

But… If Hallucca did to me what she did to that guy…

What she’d done to my mom…

…

…

…

Just what the fuck was I supposed to do…. Nobody ever talked to me about stuff like this… Not mom… certainly not her boyfriends…

I wondered.... What would dad do?

He’d shipped me back to mom, but he’d been sad about it, and he’d made sure I’d been alright.

I wondered what Panacea would do in this situation. She’d been nice enough the one time I’d met her. Very inquisitive about me and dad, but still nice.

But how the hell was I supposed to use my powers here? I couldn’t create a solve-everything tool out of nowhere…

But maybe, if I used the sleeper… Could I help her? No, I couldn’t. Sely couldn’t, and Gadget couldn’t either.

But then again, these guys were all scared of their asses of parahumans, and they didn’t exactly know that I couldn’t do anything to help Emma. I’d just have to bluff my way through.


	20. Chapter 20

Gadget 3.7  
I thought about what to do while eating my pizza. First, I’d have to get rid of the queen, probably by getting her to fall asleep. My sleeper would probably work for that. Probably.

I hadn’t actually tested it yet. From what I’d looked up on the internet, there were specific brainwave patterns associated with sleep. I wasn’t sure how the hell there could be waves inside a brain, but whatevs. So, I’d recorded my own brain while falling asleep. If I was right, the sleeper would induce the same kind of condition. Hopefully, that would make people fall asleep. Or, you know, cause a brain aneurysm. Probably not, but maybe.

So what to do after she was asleep. I’d have to find Emma, free Emma, and help Emma escape.

Quite a task, given that I hadn’t exactly managed to escape myself. Was I really in a position to help someone else?

On that topic, if I was going to do something, I’d need to protect my identity. I could summon my helmet, but… my current outfit was rather easy to recognize. Could I find something I could wear here in the school? Something I could use to cover my identity?

I looked at the queen, Hallucca, the mayor, Paige.She was almost done with her pizza, and was looking at the small TV hanging on the wall. It wasn’t on, because there was no power, but the screen was changing colours every now and then. It was weird, looking at her doing things like that, knowing who she was. Somehow, in my mind, they were all sort of different people, even though I knew they were the same person.

The mayor, I hadn’t really known much about. She was in the local news every now and then, but I hadn’t really paid any attention. There weren’t any crazy sex scandals or anything around her like you’d see in TV-shows, and the city was generally pretty good, so I could only presume she was good at her job.

Hallucca, everyone in town had known about. Mom had often warned me, whenever I’d snuck out at night, that Hallucca would get me. Most people in school had been too afraid of her to even think of doing drugs. However, she was pretty elusive, only coming out once every couple of months. When that happened, people’s homes would be ruined, roads got torn up, and people ended up in the hospital. She laughed, shouted like a maniac, and her minions would destroy whatever she couldn’t. she’d been the kind of crazy person you stayed away from if you knew what was good for you. In retrospect, I should’ve known that stealing from her was a really bad idea.

The queen. She was scary, in a different way than Hallucca was. Hallucca was distant, a vague threat that would hurt people at random. The queen, she got personal. She wanted respect, and she abhorred failure. Anyone who opposed her would get her personal attention. Knowing what she could do. That she could do that to me if I angered her…

I’d almost been on the receiving end of that during my first talk with her, when she’d gotten angry for a few seconds. I really didn’t want to do that. It was bad enough to watch her look at someone else that way.

All of that, however, was balanced out by Paige. O’Neill had said that the queen was Hallucca and the mayor combined, crazy all the time, but I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case. It was hard to see, but it was there right now, while she was trying to watch tv, or back when we met, when she hugged me. She was nice, kind, almost. But also not entirely there in her mind.

It was like they were two different people, but also not. Paige showed herself to me because the queen seemed to like me, so they were still related in a way.

When the protectorate caught her… would they put her in the birdcage? Lock her up with the scariest people in the world… I couldn’t say that the queen didn’t deserve that, but Paige…

This was so frustrating… first the thing with Emma, now Paige, the queen… why couldn’t things be simple again. All I wanted was to have my stuff and be able to tinker away, do my own thing without mom or her boyfriends ruining everything. It wasn’t fair that I now had to deal with all this. Even if it wasn’t my fault, if I couldn’t do anything about it, I’d still feel guilty if Paige was sent to the birdcage and murdered there…

Could I do something about that? Would she not get sent there if she turned herself in? if she came without a fight? Could I talk to someone about it?

But why would anyone take me seriously if I said something. At best, I was a fourteen year old known for being ‘a troublemaker’. At worst, I was a supervillain myself.

I’d had my hands in my hair from frustration, and when I looked up, I saw that Paige was looking at me. Paige, not Hallucca, not the queen. She looked… I wasn’t sure. Frustrated? Was she frustrated that I was frustrated, or was there something else? She patted on the now even more luxurious couch besides her with her hand. “Come here child, it’s going to be all right.” She said in a soft, almost singing voice.

I walked over to her, putting my empty plate to the side. She was wrong. It wasn’t going to be all right. She was going to get arrested and put in the birdcage just because she was a little crazy, O’Neill was going to hurt Emma, was probably hurting her right now. My mom was probably in the hospital, the house was destroyed, my scarf was gone, I’d hurt Horn far more then I’d wanted to, I still had small wounds all over my body, I was still getting sick, dad probably didn’t want anything to do with me either…

I stumbled over my heels, falling over. Paige caught me, and I hid my face in her chest, holding on to her. It’s not that I was crying, I didn’t cry, everything was just a little…

After a few minutes, I didn’t really know how long, Paige turned me around as someone entered the room, sitting me on the couch in front of her, her hands clasped together on my lap. It was O’Neill again, he probably had some more news that he wouldn’t tell the queen.

A second, that was all it took before I heard the harsh tones of the queen above me.

“Tell me what happened!” She commanded.

The slick little bastard looked at her, overthinking every word before he said it. “Your majesty. The Protectorate has reactivated the water filtration system, presumably sabotaging it to poison your loyal subjects. Every second they are allowed to remain, more of your people will get hurt.”

Wait, the Protectorate poisoning people with the water? From what I’d gathered, the entire problem was that the water was already poisoned. Something I’d caused by dropping those drugs in the lake. How did that make sense.

Unless… what if it didn’t make sense. O’Neill lied, so what would he have to gain from making the queen believe the protectorate was poisoning people?

“Poison you say? A low blow, even for them. One that demands retribution. But it would be foolish to attack them while they are fortified. First, we must protect our loyal subjects.” The queen replied.

“Your majesty. We cannot let them fortify further, you should strike right now.”

Ahh, that was what was happening, he wanted the queen gone, so he could do something in the meantime.

Probably something involving hurting Emma. I couldn’t let that happen. As long as the queen was nearby, O’Neill needed to work around her, instead of going straight ahead with whatever he was doing. “Majesty… please don’t go.” I said, in the most pleading tone I could, “your people need you here.”

O’Neill looked at me, but his face was an unreadable mask, he was good at this stuff, probably a lawyer or something. Before the queen could reply to me, he objected. “We cannot delay your majesty, you must go now before more people get hurt.”

“Can’t people just drink bottled water?” I replied. Probably not, the bottled water had probably been drunk today already, but I needed to do something to keep the queen here.

“There’s not enough, people just don’t have all that much bottled water in their fridge. You must attack them your majesty, this cannot go unpunished!”

I could feel the queen’s arms tense, she was thinking about something. Eventually, she answered. “General O’Neill, I seem to remember some of our men carrying around large amounts of bottled water. In times of emergency, we should share our bounty with the populace. See to it that the people know that the protectorate is trying to poison them, but that their queen will protect them.” She stated.

I wasn’t sure what her thinking process was. Did she believe O’Neill? Did she not want to attack them because she was scared, or because she wanted to protect her people? And what was this about O’Neill’s people walking around with lots of water. He wasn’t looking to happy that the queen had known about it, or that she’d told him to share.

One of her hands pointed at the doorway behind O’Neill, signalling that he could go. O’Neill walked backwards, and gave a quick “of course, your majesty”, before turning around and leaving me alone with the queen, closing the door behind him.

“He’s not cut out for this job” Paige told me, her left arm still wrapped around me in half a hug, the right playing with my hair. It was scary, being this close to her, to the queen, but it was also nice to have someone hold me like that, made it easier to pretend everything was going to be okay somehow.

It wasn’t, but I could pretend.

“He’s a good man, but he’s been acting really distracted the last few days, like his mind’s not on the task.”

Yeah, you could say that. From what I’d heard, his mind was very much on something else than the queen’s commands. I didn’t know what, but there was something that had him distracted.

Paige kept on fiddling with my hair, grabbing a comb from somewhere, or maybe she just made it. She could make matter change, so she could probably also create it. I wondered what exactly her powers were. There didn’t seem to be a single effect there, more of a wider theme. Control of her surroundings or something like that. A control that was then warped into something that made her slightly crazy, more so since the thing on the pier. So, instead of doing one thing in lots of different ways, she did lots of different things to the same effect. Like my hair, she’d somehow removed the dye from it, probably made it longer. But then why didn’t she directly affect her opponents? Was it because she couldn’t use her power on living things, but hair didn’t count as being alive? I wondered how that’d work with skin cells, some of those were dead as well.

To make hair longer, probably wasn’t even that hard with weird powers like her. She could just copy its structure and increase the length. Like somehow growing extra loops in the middle of a chain. It wouldn’t have grown naturally, but it would still be the same substance. That was probably what she was doing right now, all the while brushing the tangles from my hair.

I wondered, her powers had changed. Whenever I’d seen her use them, she’d been intently focused, staring straight at whatever object she was affecting, Did that mean that, now that she was focussed on my hair and the back of my head, she wouldn’t see what I was doing with my hands?

I summoned my sleeper in my right hand, furthest away from Paige’s hug/hold. It wasn’t really a gun. It emitted electromagnetic waves into the area it was aimed at, going right through everything. If I aimed it through my own body, at her, it would probably make both of us sleepy. I just needed to remain alert, while she’d be too focused on my hair to pay attention to the increase in sleepiness.

Add to that the wine I’d been giving her all day, and she’d probably fall asleep like a reality-warping baby.

After overthinking the situation for way too long, I aimed the sleeper at myself, and fired. It was soundless, lightless, designed for stealth. I wondered if this was going to work. Would I fall asleep first? Would someone come in and see the sleeper, unmasking me? I just didn’t know.

*** Gadget ***

Eventually, I wasn’t quite sure how long, probably after about fifteen minutes, Paige had fallen asleep. I wasn’t sure if it had taken a long time because my sleeper didn’t work very well, because it had to go through my own body, or because she’d been resisting it somehow. I slowly moved her hand, and stood up from the couch.

The first thing I noticed was how heavy my head was. The second thing was that I could no longer see any hair in my field of vision. I reached behind me.

She’d made it a bit longer before, but this…

My hair now stopped just before my butt. How was I going to hide this… just… hide it under my shirt?

Of course, I’d need a shirt first, and I’d already established for myself that there hadn’t been any in the teachers lounge. Maybe there was something in the phys. Ed. Department, spare or found gym clothes. That might work, and be really sweaty. Luckily, I knew how to sneak around at school. Of course, lets see, there was a window in a nearby hallway that looked out on the roof of the building they used for shop class and stuff like that, from there, I”d be able to jump on the bleachers near the football field, make my way down and make my way into the offices there, that should be easy.

I looked through the keyhole, no-one was outside. Sneaking further, I saw the window I needed to open. It was locked, definitely not intended to be opened by students, but that hadn’t stopped me before I’d gotten my powers, and it sure as hell didn’t stand a chance against my lock-picker.

The next part was bad. I’d have to jump a two meter gap, something that was actually quite easy if you just went for it, since there was a small drop involved. But I’d have to take my shoes of, because I sure as hell couldn’t make the jump in heels. Taking them off and jumping with them in my hands, I made it. Furthermore, I’d only sort of fallen over.

Which was a new problem, because now the pristinely white outfit’s bottom half was dirty.

I’d deal with that later, hopefully.

While walking towards the place where I’d have to jump down to the bleachers, I started to look around where people where, getting a feel for the situation. It was empty, emptier than I’d expected. Were there just no people left? Was O’Neill too afraid of the queen, and did he send people out to distribute water? Or was he busy with something else, some operation he didn’t want to tell anyone about.

There were two doors that were closely guarded by multiple people. The one closest to the teacher’s lounge, which we’d come in through, and I could see another one near the cafeteria with multiple people in front of it. Was that because they were hungry? Or was it because they were guarding something, or someone?

What that meant, was that there was almost no-one near the locker rooms. I jumped down, from the roof to the top of the bleachers, hoping I’d judged the distances right. I probably had, I mean, I’d done this dozens of time before. From there, I made my way back inside, not even having to unlock the doors. Some people just couldn’t get their heads around the idea of locking doors.

Once inside, I made my way to the lost and found bin for gym clothes, also known as the sweatstack. Also known as meaning I just made that up. It didn’t actually stink of sweat that much, so they probably cleaned it every now and then. I went through it and tried to cobble together an outfit that could go over what I was wearing now. That meant that, in an emergency, I could probably just absorb whatever I was wearing and pretend I hadn’t gone undercover at all.

*** Gadget ***

I was very happy with my helmet, not just because the little lights on the inside were amazing and I finally had good old artificial light again, but also because it was the only part of my new outfit that was NOT shit. I was wearing a discarded black sweater, and some guys’ jeans.

But I had more important things to worry about than a fashion emergency. I made my way to the coaches office. A laptop, jackpot. Had it been a desktop, this wouldn’t work, but this way, it would probably still have some charge. Starting it up, I came upon a password screen. That… shouldn’t take too long.

*** Gadget ***

I checked the timer on my phone, ten minutes left, and one guard on the door I wanted to look behind. Not to mention the people who might be guarding what’s inside. I was pretty sure that this was the place though. Had to be. I wasn’t sure what to do if it wasn’t. I grabbed my second sleeper, the one I’d used on Paige now too low on battery. Here went nothing.

It was working, It was actually working. Five seconds, and the guy started yawning, ten seconds, he was leaning against the wall. Ten more and he decided to sit down. Half a minute, and he was fast asleep.

Fuck I was awesome.

I walked to the door, taking care not to disturb the sleeping guard. When I came closer, I saw the ground beneath him. He’d been leaking some sort of substance, slick stuff, pouring out of his skin. One of his junks then.

I looked at the door before me. Only nine minutes left.

How should I go in… just kick the door open? Sneak in all stealthy like? The second seemed like the better idea. Too bad it didn’t have a lock, then I’d be able to watch through the keyhole.

I pushed the door open slowly, sneaking into the room, someone with a nasty sense of humour had chosen to use the detention room for this.

She was tied to a chair in the middle of the room, with some sort of rubbery rope, and her torso was covered in frothy white stuff that could only be containment foam. It didn’t seem to cover her fully, but it covered large parts of her right arm. She had a black eye, and several other bruises, as well as a nasty cut on her hand. Her lip was split, and a few of her fingers didn’t seem to be turning right.

I… wasn’t sure what I was planning on doing. I quickly looked at my phone. Bit more than seven minutes left.

I walked towards Emma, and tried to shake her awake.

“Emma, Emma? Are you alright?” I said, my voice modulator making me sound very deep, like a guy who smoked way too much for way too long, but was still really cool.

She woke up, and saw my chrome helmet right in front of her, accompanied by that sound. Needless to say, she tried to scream.

I quickly put a hand over her mouth. “Shh. I’m here to help you”.

I had to admit, I didn’t sound too convincing with that voice. More… menacing.

Fuck it, this was going all kinds of wrong anyway, Horn already knew who I was, telling Emma probably wouldn’t lead to any more trouble than that would. I took of my helmet.

“Emma, relax, it’s me.”

She seemed to calm down, so I removed my hand from her mouth.

“Sely? What… how… please, you got to leave before he returns.”

“It’s all-right Emma, I’m here to rescue you. O’Neill isn’t around right now, so let’s set you free.”

She looked confused at the revelation that I was a cape, but was willing to take that in stride for now. I summoned a pair of scissors meant for electrical wire, and started cutting through the ropes.

“Can you stand?” I asked, cutting as fast as I could. The timing here was kind of important.

“I… Maybe, but, it hurts…”

“I know Emma, I know it hurts, but you can’t stay here.” I looked on my phone, five minutes left.

“The guy outside is asleep, and there’s no guards on the exit on the side of the football field.”

“I… Sely, can’t you come with me… I’m afraid. I… I got these powers and… I don’t know if I can control them.”

I looked at her. It didn’t seem like she didn’t have any control, she wasn’t flashing with lightning or anything. Coming with her… it sounded like a great idea. I’d be away from all this, we could run away, get to safety…

But if I wasn’t there when she woke up. if O’Neill did something to fuck her over, or the protectorate attacked and she decided to go all out. Paige needed me, whether I liked it or not. She’d been nice to me, I couldn’t just leave her behind…

But how did I explain to Emma that the crazy queen everyone was afraid of was actually kind of nice? I guess I could just lie about it? That’d work.

“I need to complete my mission Emma, O’Neill, the guy in charge, he’s planning something. I can’t leave until I’ve stopped him.”

She thought about it. Looked at me, then at herself.

“I… the guy, O’Neill, are you going to hurt him?”

I wasn’t sure how to reply, but… “I’m going to try and put a stop to him, but you have to get out of here before my distraction goes off.”

“I… Sely… can, can I help? I want to help you stop him.”

She was calling my bluff without knowing it. Shit. What was I going to do

“Emma, you have to get to the Protectorate, you’re not in any state to help me. Just get out of here and go for the water plant”

It didn’t convince her. She stood up, her leg’s working. “I can’t… I can’t run again. My brother, he… The stuff in the water got to him, he was really sick but, there was this gas and I couldn’t… I gotta take down this guy Sely. Come on, let’s go.” She didn’t sound as committed as her words implied. It was more like she was trying to talk herself into believing it.

I looked at my phone again, three minutes.

“I can do this. I can do this I can do this I CAN FUCKING DO THIS!” She shouted, waking up the guy sleeping on the other side of the door. He stood up, and looked at her, a look of fear in his eyes at seeing her unchained. He tried to say something, but Emma was within touch range. Rays of electricity shot out of her left arm, the one not covered in specks of foam, and shocked the man. He groaned, but it didn’t seem to be enough to take him down.

The stuff leaking out of his body, of course. They’d set him on guard because it was at least partly an insulator. She could keep him stunned, but not take him down.

A wrench to the head, however, seemed to work perfectly fine. I hoped I didn’t hit him too hard, but he probably didn’t have any brain cells to lose anyway.

It seemed like we were going after O’Neill. The question was, where was he.

Maybe… I summoned his wallet. I’d grabbed it while we’d been walking to the queen together, but finding myself without pockets, I’d been forced to blueprint it. I’d forgotten all about it. Maybe it contained a clue.

Emma looked at what I was doing as I went through the wallet. Money, Credit-Cards, ticket stubs, the same secret society coins Horn had. Finally, I came upon what I needed. A membership card from the local golf club, a rather exclusive affair just north of town. I’d been forced to play caddy there once. It was out of the way, not the place people would look, and from the card, this guy was a high-ranking member.

As good a guess as any. I looked to Emma, and explained where we’d have to go.. “The golf club up north, that’s my best guess for finding O’Neill.”

She nodded.

Then, the noise started to the southwest of the school.

“Quick question Emma, can you drive?”


	21. Chapter 21

Endgame: 4.1

WHAT?” Emma replied.

“You don’t need to shout Emma, I was just asking if you could drive.”

“WHAT ARE YOU SAYING I CAN’T HEAR YOU OVER THIS NOISE!”

“Emma, the noise isn’t that loud.”

“WHERE THE HELL IS THAT NOISE COMING FROM!”

“The noise is my distraction Emma, we gotta go now!”

“ARE YOU SAYING THE NOISE IS DISTRACTING? OF COURSE THE NOISE IS DISTRACTING!”

Why the hell was Emma pretending my distractor was too loud. Sure, it carried pretty well, but I could still hear her perfectly fine, it was just a matter of filtering out the frequencies from the device through my earplugs and everything was okay.

This, of course, meant that I’d need to give her earplugs as well.

I am officially an idiot.

“Emma, take these!” I said, holding out a second pair of earplugs. They were connected to my helmet through a wireless signal, sending through only the sounds I wanted. Giving them to hear would probably mean that she’d hear exactly what I was hearing, as long as she was in range. That said, I put my helmet back on, setting the voice-changer to squeaky helium.

Emma put in the earplugs.

“OH GREAT THE NOISE JUST STOPPED WHY AM I SHOUTING?”

“…”

“OKAY I guess I can stop shouting now. Thanks for the earplugs Sely.”

“Sure thing, but, ehm, can you call me Gadget with the helmet on?”

“I guess, but, I don’t have a name yet. Like, a cape name.”

“You can think of one later, now, as I was asking, can you drive?”

She looked at me with her mouth open, confused and offended somehow.

“Sely, I mean Gadget, we’re both Fourteen, we’re not allowed to drive, not even with adult supervision… It’s illegal, you can’t do that…”

Seriously? Seriously? It was illegal? That was what she was worried about? Not the fact that we were in the middle of an enemy base, that she just got tortured, that the entire city was in chaos, or hat we both had magic powers?

Some people…

“Emma... I don’t even…”

*** Horn ***

Horn looked over the city, his real body high suspended several meters above the ground. There were very few lights. A few from torches or flashlights, and there was electricity at the water treatment plant, the hospital, and what seemed to be the local high-school. It was difficult to make out. The more he protected his face, the less he could see. His ears however, still worked, and picked up on the sound. He’d heard it before. His ears were better than most people’s, but it was still rather loud. Probably louder than the last time, when the device had been stuck in the dirt. Most people in the town could hear it if they paid attention. Especially since everything else was silent.

He double-checked his armor, to make sure there were no traps left. His wounds were healing, but still hurt. He should’ve remembered that you just couldn’t trust criminals, even small ones. The bitch had hurt him, but she hadn’t succeeded in taking him down. He would just keep coming.

He dashed forward into the city, towards the noise. The ground flowing beneath him. The speed, the strength, it was intoxicating. His four-legged strides were long enough to jump cars, the asphalt breaking under his clawed ‘feet’.

As he entered the town proper, he saw the devastation. Some caused by people with fake powers, other parts the result of his previous fight with Hallucca, and still some more caused by what had probably been looters, using the chaos to get a new television. People were pathetic.

A quick turn around the corner, far nimbler than before, saw him dashing towards a patrol of some sort. Behind him, he could hear the asphalt his feet had used for grip fly into a window. He was quickly approaching the patrol. One of them had a glowing face, and a fireball flew from his hand. Another, visible only because of the light from glow-face, shot with a gun. Both bounced off of him harmlessly. The fire-throwing fake was nothing in comparison to someone like Blauwster.

He kept going, not even bothering with the group. He felt one of his feet bump into something, but didn’t know if it was a person or a dumpster. They were nothing before him now. Nothing could stop him. Not Hallucca, not that little blonde bitch, not even Blake with his stupid little regulations.

*** Armsmaster***

The water treatment plant was… interesting. At first Colin had worked on upgrading the original filtration system and restoring power. It was only after an hours work that Skip had found something. A place where, until quite recently, someone had operated chemical machinery not usually found in normal water treatment. That was when it had all become clear to him. The problem wasn’t just the drugs in the lake, which had polluted the water supply. The problem was that the drugs didn’t break down, at least not in the traditional way.

The machinery had been in the area of the treatment plant used for treating sewage, filtering something out of it. He’d called Myrddin over, who used his powers to isolate the compounds. The problem was, they’d expected the drug to be weaker here, at least partly used up inside the user. Instead, it was stronger, more potent. Even more troubling, someone had extracted this stronger variety using tinker-tech machinery. The question was who, and with whose machinery. Would they be facing a tinker? He’d been informed about a possible tinker/stranger in the town, but that didn’t fit with finding this machine here.

He hated this, not knowing who his enemies were, or where they were hiding. If he had more information, he could prepare, set up counter-measures, make plans, do something. Right now, he could only worry. None of the people they’d taken down and arrested had known anything about where his daughter was, or Hallucca for that matter. She was good at this, better then you’d expect from a madman who’d nearly destroyed her own town for a quick grab at power. Rodeo had been using his power to lead her to them, but it just hadn’t worked.

Was she immune to his abilities? Or was it something else? He double-checked the files on Rodeo’s power. He was often flown in for big events where stampedes were a possibility, and there was quite a bit of information on it. One of the more useful parts was that his power worked on the subconscious, causing people to think they wanted to go somewhere, instead of forcing them to go there. It meant that there was little public backlash when he used his powers, they could be resisted, but only when someone really wanted to do something. He could move people somewhere, but he couldn’t, split up people in close groups, like families.

He thought about it, how would he counter Rodeo if he was in Hallucca’s position. His first thought was writing a program that would pre-determine his route, but that wouldn’t exactly work, because he’d still have to enter his destination into the program, and that was what it affected. Something more subtle then. Think about where he wanted to go, and then go into the opposite direction. That might work, unless the power took that into account, making people still fall into that trap. He searched the database once more, yes, someone had tried that, and it hadn’t worked.

What else… The power affected the mind, so you couldn’t trick yourself.

It hit him, of course. If the power worked on your subconscious thoughts, he’d just have to ask someone else where they wanted to go. They wouldn’t be aware of the reverse psychology trick, so they’d answer truthfully. Then, you’d simply go the other way afterwards.

If that worked, then actively sending the enemy away from them would attract them instead. Countering reverse psychology with reverse psychology.

He put a finishing touch on his new filtration system, the flow of water into the device powering its own filtration. The only sound was the gentle flow of water, anything else was minimized, noise was inefficiency. It was time to find Rodeo, and ask him to turn around his power, with some luck, that’d attract Hallucca, and with that, he’d be able to rescue Sely.

When he entered the room where the others had holed up to rest, his sensors picked up something. A high-pitched noise, his triangulation system placing it to the west, in the middle of the city, precise to about fifty metres at this range, more if it was inside.

“Time to go everyone, something’s happening.” He said, waking up Skip. Assault and Mouse Protector looked up from their card-game as well, they seemed to be having fun. He’d have to inform Battery about that, it wouldn’t be good for the team dynamic if Assault broke up with her, probably.

*** Paige ***

The queen woke up with a jolt, unaware that she had fallen asleep. Some fool had disturbed her with a hellish noise; it was like her eardrums were bleeding. Quickly, she covered her ears with her hands, and leveraged her power to create a long-term solution to the noise. It would be harder to communicate with these earplugs in, but she didn’t need to talk to punish the scoundrel that had woken her up.

Her ears protected, she looked around. Something was missing. She thought for a second. Had someone stolen something from her? Then she remembered. Loyal little Sely, her cup-bearer, someone had stolen her away. This could not stand. No-one defied her, and no-one hurt her subjects.

Horn, it was probably Horn, that uncouth savage had thwarted her plans for long enough, and now she’d kidnapped her servant as well.

She looked at the little kitchenette, a stainless steel countertop. That would do quite nicely. She walked towards it, and it started growing, folding, thickening, changing shape. When she touched it, she wrapped it around her, covering herself in the now sturdy steel. It was… tricky. It was easier to reform the joints whenever she moved than it was to figure out a proper design on the fly.

She started for the door, and walked towards the source of the noise. The few people standing on guard were busy covering their ears, hoping the noise would end. The sound was letting down slowly, but that didn’t mean all that much given its initial strength.

When she left the building, she saw the source of the sound. Up high, near the roof of a building. She conjured up some light in its vicinity. It was a drone. It was slowly flying around the building, as if observing it. Strapped to its side was a little box that was creating the noise. She applied her power, trying to take it down.

It resisted her a little. It reminded her of the invaders, the one whose armor resisted her power, and the one who created things that were harder to affect. She paid more attention, checking which parts of her power worked on it, and which didn’t. Matter generation and depletion was more difficult, while her telekinesis still worked. Good. She broke the sound generator, and twisted the drone in such a way that it crashed down. Maybe it contained some hints as to who was opposing her.

She took out her earplugs, and noted that there was still noise. This time it was something that was approaching her general location. It sounded big, heavy, and fast.

*** Emma ***

Nothing in the last two days had made any sense. Emma’s parents had been out of town on a business trip. Her brother, a nineteen year old “college student” had stayed home to take care of her. The idea being that he could cook meals rather than get take-out food or ramen every day. But, Emma could cope, it would only be a few more days.

Except then the power had gone out, the house turning dark. Her brother, Jeffrey, had said it wasn’t a big deal, that they could get out some candles or something. It was scary though, the dark all around, only candlelight around to help her.

Jeffrey had heated up some soup from a can for dinner, and they’d spend the evening reading. Reading was stupid, but the phone lines were down, and she couldn’t call any of her friends.

Later that night, Jeffrey had decided to take a bath, hoping that the warm water was still working.

That was when stuff had really started going wrong. Jeffrey had started shouting, and I’d ran up to help him, but something was wrong. I heard him throwing up, but there was some weird thick gas flowing through the small slits around the door. Worse, it was eating away at the wood.

She could see it, the thick clouds slowly moving towards her, but she wanted to help Jeffrey.

But she couldn’t, because the gas was in the way.

Eventually, she heard Jeffrey scream something. He sounded like he was in a great amount of pain.

“Run Emma, get away from me, get the PRT. Something’s really wrong with me.”

*** Emma ***

She couldn’t find the PRT office, but she did see several destroyed buildings. It was dark, she could hear people crying out, screaming. She had to get away from this, but she couldn’t go home. She just had to find the heroes, they would solve everything, that was what heroes did…

“Hghhh GHeeelp,” She heard someone say. She looked around at the source of the noise. It was an old woman, about fifty years old. Her eyes were glowing, and she was walking, no, stumbling, towards her, one hand reaching forward. Her body was moving strangely, twisting where it shouldn’t twist. Emma couldn’t see much of it in the darkness, but it didn’t sound right. She ran again, further into the darkness of the city. Trying to get away from it all.

The darkness was moving in around her, she was hugging a street-light, but it didn’t work, it wasn’t on. Everything was dark and wrong and didn’t make any sense. Why wasn’t the power working. When were her parents coming home? She just wanted to go home but…

The darkness kept getting closer, like it was moving around her, she couldn’t even make out her own hands anymore.

She saw nothing

She saw everything

She forgot everything

She saw light.

She was still clutching the street-light, but it was working now. A small electric light shining, light, at long last.

She looked at her hands, sparks were flying between her and the lamp-post.

*** Emma ***

Sely was really wacky, everyone at school knew that. She was a troublemaker. But never in a malicious way. She didn’t bully other students. It’s just that the teachers didn’t like it when she snuck onto the roof again. She hadn’t really belonged to any clique, but everyone knew her, or at least knew of her, especially after she’d hijacked the announcement system to read out a few of the notes two teachers were passing around between each other.

That didn’t mean, however, that anyone would have expected that she was a cape. If she was a cape at least. The goofy helmet certainly seemed to point that way, and the earplugs were very high quality, but hitting someone in the head with a hammer wasn’t exactly a show of parahuman ability.

And now she wanted to drive a car. Which was illegal, because neither of them had a driver’s license. which meant they couldn’t, or they’d be supervillains, that was what parahumans who broke the law were.

Emma wasn’t a supervillain. Sure, she’d left her brother behind, but he’d told her to. She’d hurt people, but those people had been bad people, and heroes were allowed to beat up bad people.

So no, they weren’t going to drive around, because they weren’t villains. She grabbed Sely’s hand, and pulled her along. She had a plan. There were mountain bikes stored at school, second-hand ones used by the cycling club, they could borrow those. Borrowing without asking was all right in an emergency.

Together, they ran towards the shed were they were stored. They passed another guard, covering his ears. A quick zap took him down before he could do anything. A quick dash across open ground, and they’d reached their destination.

She tried the door, locked. An iron lock, she could work with that. Emma pushed Sely, Gadget, away, and pulled forth her full power. Lightning bolts arced across her body, and she send them towards the lock. They lashed through the air, and she could feel the insides of the metal lock. Moving the electricity inside the lock, she moved the metal as well, removing it from the door. She’d done it, she’d opened a door without anyone nearby getting hurt, or anything electrical exploding.

And then she heard the noise, the new noise. Something was approaching, big, fast, strong. She could feel it whenever it touched the ground. She turned around, and saw Sely running back into the school. On the other side, she saw something big. Even in the darkness, she could see the spikes running along its exterior. It was white, but there was a red streak across one side. It looked utterly terrifying. It didn’t have a head, the angles on its legs looked unnatural, and it kept leaping towards the school. Towards Sely.

Was this it? Her first big fight, her all alone against this thing? This… she was too afraid to say it, but… Endbringer?

It seemed to be ignoring her, going straight for the school, the door Sely had entered through. An angry scream came from within the thing. It sounded more like a beast than a man.


	22. Chapter 22

Gadget 4.2

Before I could grab my lockpicker, Emma pushed me away from the door, then, she started activating her power.

At first, I thought that she just electrified everything around her, but that wasn’t correct. Not exactly. The sparks didn’t dance around her, but through her. Some in the zipper of her jacket, sporadically through the fabric in places, but most clear was the electricity under her skin. Neurons, maybe? Those had electricity didn’t they? Or maybe it was something else.

When her hand moved towards the door, it lashed out, moving between her and the metal handle.

Which was very interesting, but I also heard something else. Something big.

Only one thing that could be. I looked in the direction it was coming from, I couldn’t see much, but yeah, only one thing was that big and spiky. And that thing did not like me.

“Emma, we have to run, NOW.”

Emma…. Wasn’t replying, too caught up in her power to listen to me. I thought about pulling her along, but when I moved closer, sparks started moving closer to me, and my helmet’s HUD started getting interference. I could only hope that she’d notice in time, or that Horn wouldn’t attack her.

Me, I ran for the school, maybe he wouldn’t be able to find me once inside. I dashed for the closest entrance, the one we’d just left, and ran though. The thumping only increased.

I ran further, almost slipping several times with my socks on the smooth hallway floor, more sliding through the corners than running. This was bad, this was really bad. That howl… Horn was angry.

I should’ve expected that. I should’ve thought of that before I made him stab himself with his own thorns, and now, he’d apparently removed my traps, and he was coming for me.

That was the second time this week that I made my enemies more powerful.

I thought Horn crashing into the ground was loud. But behind me, I heard bricks fall and wood splinter. Horn just hit the school.

I turned another corner, only to see a set of guards. Two of them, one keeping a healthy distance from the other.

“Fly you fools”. I shouted, a pipsqueaky voice coming out. Great, just when I needed people to take me seriously.

One of them, the one that had been looking at his partner in fear, started running. The other… the other decided he would block my path. He stood in the middle of the small hallway, believing that stopping me would be a better idea than to escape the crumbling building.

I dashed for him, intermittently feinting to the left or to the right, but I couldn’t trick him that way. Nor could I turn around, dust was flowing into the hallway from behind me.

Seeing only one way through, I dropped down, sliding over the floor, hoping to go in between the man’s legs. It worked. Sort of.

When I was almost through, he grasped at my helmet, shortly touching it. immediately, my HUD went dark, and the glass became hard to see through. But, I managed to get to the other side, scramble to my feet, and run on.

Two hallways further, I noticed that whatever the man had done to my helmet, it was spreading. I ripped it off, immediately noticing the amount of dust in the building. Horn was just tearing it down, trying to look for me, or Hallucca I guessed. The helmet… the front of it was covered in some weird glass-like crystal, that was spreading around. I dropped it, hoping it wouldn’t do any permanent harm. Looking around, I suddenly noticed that I was getting wet, the sprinkler system? I could only hope the drugs hadn’t been in this either. Time to get out of here.

I ran out of the front entrance without further trouble, the building now abandoned. Running on, I looked back. Horn had decided to just leap on top of the building, rather than going through or around it.

Worse, I’m pretty sure he just saw me.

*** Paige ***

The thumping noise was moving towards the school-building. The building she’d just been inside of. An assassination attempt? Surely no-one would be so foolish as to underestimate her.

Then, a howl pierced through the rumbling, she turned around, looking for the source. She didn’t see anything yet. She decided to go back to her men, and left the broken drone behind her. That mystery could wait. Something was attacking her people.

As she came closer, she saw the source. A large, spiked, thing, was standing on top of the school building. It’s feet sank through the roof, but that didn’t seem to bother it. Instead, it looked like it was thriving in the destruction.

She wondered, who would be foolish enough to send such a beast after her.

She used her power on the swathes of dust rising from the school, turning it luminescent. The form became easier to make out. White horns twisted into an inhuman form. Covered in dust, mud, and she thought she also saw some blood.

Horn had returned.

She looked herself over, the armour she’d covered herself with. She made it grow, and changed it’s materials, heavier, sturdier; she needed something capable of stopping Horn, not an easy task, given how big he was right now.

Usually, the bigger he was, the slower he was. His horns added mass at the same ratio as strength, combined with the growths obstructing each other, and he’d get slower, not faster. But now. He was big, but more than that, he was intricate.

He was also angry, angry and, for lack of better words, enthusiastic. Paige steeled herself, she would defend her kingdom. She couldn’t let it fall to a savage like Horn.

Horn jumped down from his perch on top of the crumbling building, but he wasn’t coming for her. He landed just in front of the building, and was slowly walking towards someone.

It took a second, because she was wearing something else now, but Paige recognized her. Sely. So Horn had been the one who had stolen the girl away from her duties. The girl was running in fear, her beautiful golden hair flowing behind her. Horn was walking after her, spikes around his feet digging into the concrete below him to add traction.

She laughed, Horn was strong, sure. But he still had a fatal flaw. Her royal blood was what gave her dominion over the living, while her power gave her dominion over the non-living . Hair, fingernails, and Horn’s growths, they fell into that second category. She walked forward, and saw Sely look at her. She ran past her. Treason? No, she probably just didn’t recognize her with the armour. Annoying.

She moved closer, and looked at Horn, at his Horns. Started melting moving parts together, adding where there was no room, taking away where it was fragile.

 

*** Horn ***

Horn jumped, landing just behind the little criminal. Her hair had gotten longer, but he could smell her, the sweat she’d had on her hadn’t washed off, and he had a very good nose. He moved forward, feeling the crumbling of concrete beneath his feet. It felt wonderful. He was strong now, stronger than he’d ever been before. Nothing could stop him now.

Another step, just behind the girl. It wasn’t fair, he was just toying with her now. She couldn’t escape him. She would face justice for what she did.

He laughed. Finally, he was strong enough. He could protect the people now. Criminals, corrupt politicians, those didn’t stand a chance. Jack, Rodeo, he’d been wrong. You didn’t stop criminals by working together, by following guidelines and doing paperwork. Sure, sometimes it was useful to have others around. But right now? Horn was the strongest thing around. He was going to clean up the city, and nobody would be able to stop him.

Another step, and something felt off. Hallucca, her power. It had defeated him before, but not today. He’d done more than just take away the traps the girl had left. He started growing his horns, slowly, but surely. Breathing life, growth, into his horns. Slowly, enough to counteract Hallucca’s effect, but not enough to destroy the delicate balance of growths that kept his current form working.

He laughed, and looked around. There, she’d covered herself in armour, but it wouldn’t help her. He marched forward, utterly invincible. What little damage she could do, he regrew, where she added too much on top of the horn, he severed it. It had taken some time, teaching himself how to do it, and it wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough.

He charged Hallucca, switching targets. Dust flew up from the ground, obscuring his vision and breathing, but it was nothing in comparison to what Leviathan had done. He stepped further forward, and swung at her.

She couldn’t get away in time, and was launched to the side, the metal shell encasing her skidding along the ground.

*** Emma ***

The beast had ignored her, and ran after Sely, when it reached the school, it jumped on top. It was big, too big. She couldn’t hurt that thing, her electricity didn’t really leave her body, just jumping around between metal bits nearby. She could feel those metal bits, move them with her mind, but that couldn’t do anything against a creature like the thing currently tearing its way through the school.

But she couldn’t just let it go after Sely. She’d been rescued by her, she was a hero, and now Emma was going to save her in return.

She ran after the beast. Not straight after it, that… that was too scary. Maybe… maybe a bit to the side. This wasn’t just a normal hoodlum she could take down with a few self-defence lessons.

Sneaking around the side of the school, hiding behind cars where she could, she eventually saw the beast jump off, jumping down the building at the entrance. Emma started running, she had to keep up, and it couldn’t see her right now. After a quick dash, she saw the thing again, white gnarled growths surrounding it, slowly shivering under some sort of powered assault. It dashed forwards, towards a metal figure, slamming the figure to the side. It skidded along the ground towards her. She ran towards it once it stopped, the beast was looking around again, searching for something. Hadn’t it seen where its prey had landed, or was it looking for new victims?

Emma looked at the figure before her. It wasn’t armour in the traditional sense, it was just metal wrapped around a person, leaving holes at the eyes and mouth. She looked at the woman, but couldn’t recognize her. She seemed hurt.

She could help her, at least. Get her out of this metal tomb. Emma unleashed her power, the sparks arcing from her body towards the metal, entering it, filling it with electrical potential. Some of it wanted to go further, into the woman, but she reined it in as best as she could. Then, once she’d filled the metal with her electricity, she moved it, breaking it apart and shifting it away from its victim. Where it didn’t touch the skin anymore, Emma channelled more power into it. It was good metal, strong, sturdy, conductive. Slowly, while the woman was coming to again, she floated the metal in front of her, connected to her body with arcs of electricity. A spear, to pierce the heart of the beast.

The woman stood up, an intense look on her face, scary, deranged. The woman ran forwards, back into the fight. Beneath, the ground deformed, launching her forward faster with every step.

She heard a shout, one that she recognized, Sely. She had to hurry now.

*** Gadget ***

Horn was playing with me. He was too fast, too strong. I couldn’t do a thing. For just a second, I thought he left me alone, going after a metal figure instead. Probably the queen on second thought. I didn’t want her to be hurt, but… it was better than him killing me. But then, after swatting her away, he came back after me.

I ran, east, as fast as I could carry myself, which wasn’t very fast. Every time Horn jumped, he landed right behind me, the ground shifting behind my feet.

“Run little traitor. Run” he said, in a low, rumbling voice. The increased physical strength probably changed the tone of his voice somewhat.

Then, he struck at my legs. Not hard, like when he struck Paige, but just enough to swipe them out from under me. I fell, stumbling, the strike had ripped of most of the clothes around my legs, leaving only the lacy white, now covered in red dots. My feet too, were bleeding from the mad run without shoes. I couldn’t feel it, but I could see the red. Horn was laughing as I stood up, running again. Calling me a liar, a traitor. It didn’t make sense. It wasn’t fair. He wasn’t even trying to arrest me, asking me to surrender, he was just toying with me.

Why would anyone do such a thing. He was strong. He was a hero. Was he so fucking pathetic that he needed to hunt people down for sport? Whenever someone talked to him, he always said he just wanted to protect people.

But then… not everyone painted him as a hero. He was big, scary, I wasn’t quite sure what happened, but he’d been kicked out of the Protectorate for being scary.

Shaking myself out of my thoughts, I jumped over the next sweep, staying on my legs.

“You think you can dodge me. You little bitch? You think I’m stupid? I’m not stupid, I’m stronger than you.” He rambled. The next time, he hit at chest height, and knocked me to the ground again. I heard something crack when he hit me. When I tried to stand up, my left arm was dangling uselessly. I screamed again, for the third or fourth time. I didn’t have anything to stop him, I couldn’t do anything.

*** Horn ***

Hallucca was down, out of the fight for now. She wouldn’t survive that blow, not even in her tiny tin shell. Horn looked at the other criminal, the one that was personal. She’d thought he was stupid, tried to trick him. But that didn’t matter, he just kept coming. He always kept coming. Didn’t matter if the people feared him, he wouldn’t stop what he was doing, catching criminals.

Sure, he could admit he wasn’t very intelligent. He’d never done well in school. But you didn’t need to be smart to do the right thing, to be a hero. You just needed to fight the good fight.

It didn’t matter, that people called him a worthless hero, what mattered was that he kept the streets clean. He’d fought Leviathan, he had friends in countries these people had never been to.

He jumped after the girl, the girl that thought she could rob people in his city. The girl that thought she could betray him.

He swiped at her feet, the little idiot fell over. That would show her. He’d seen her, inspecting his posters. All he’d wanted was for some help tracking down Hallucca’s stash of drugs, but she’d obviously just taken that as inspiration for her own heist, taking the drugs for herself. You couldn’t trust criminals like that. She fell, stumbling, but got back up again. She was running again, one jump, and he was right behind her.

Another swipe, that would teach her. This time, the cheeky little traitor jumped his attack. Laughable. He berated her, for her behaviour, and then struck again, aiming higher this time. The girl fell, he felt her bones break. Still, she stood up again. Filthy tenacious little bugger.

It was about time to really take her down, he’d need to go back and make sure Hallucca was fully defeated too. He leaped after her, and struck for a third time, this time upwards. A slow hit, aimed to impart momentum this time, not squish her body immediately. She was launched forwards in an arc.

*** Emma ***

She tried following the woman, bringing her gigantic spear along, but the woman was too fast. Still, not as fast as the beast, not with the head-start it had. She looked at her spear, it was big, heavy. Not in the traditional way, but still. Lifting it upwards, some weight was on her feet. Part of that was taken care of by small arcs of lightning, grounding themselves, pushing up a bit, but not enough.

Could she do the same thing going forwards? Throw something backwards, and go faster that way. Emma looked at the side of the road, parked cars.

She could stand on one of them, push another away, and go faster that way. But… she was pretty sure that would be like stealing the car. Taking people’s property. That wasn’t what heroes did, heroes returned stolen items. She looked further, until she saw a bicycle someone had locked to their fence. Could she take that?

It’d still be illegal, of course. You couldn’t just take what you wanted like that. But, maybe it was okay if you could save someone’s life? Still, she couldn’t just…

Fine, she’d do it, she’d steal a bike to save Sely. She’d probably end up in the birdcage for being a supervillain eventually, but it was worth it to repay her debt. Father always said that a good person repaid his debts, and that probably also counted for women. Probably. Dad had never been sexist in any way, but you never knew.

She set her spear down for a second, and started working on the bike lock, wrenching it open with her power. Then, after taking a seat, (it was a boy bike, so it was harder than usual, it was also a bicycle for someone significantly taller than her.), she lifted up her spear again. This time, her electricity moved through it easier, making it quicker to respond, she didn’t need to take a few seconds to fill it up anymore. Holding out one hand to keep her power focussed on her spear, she started cycling, quickly seeing the woman again, who was she? An out of town heroine? Here to save the day? She vaguely recognized the woman's face, probably from the news or something, so that made sense. Still, she couldn’t help Sely or the woman if she wasn’t anywhere near them, so she biked on, trying not to fall over with the massive spear floating just above and to the side of her, small electrical sparks covering her body, the bike, and the spear, and flowing between them.

 

*** Gadget ***

Again, I’d gotten up, clutching my broken arm. I had to run, but I couldn’t see, I couldn’t feel. It was so dark, I was cold and bleeding. I didn’t want this. I just wanted to get some stuff to tinker with, I never asked for this. Horn was going to kill me. He was going to kill me, and then he was going to kill Emma, and he was going to kill my mom, and he was going to kill Paige.

Or worse, Paige would kill him, and then someone would arrest her, send her to the birdcage. She’d spend her remaining days surrounded by monsters who would hurt her all day long.

When had I changed like that, that when my death was immininnimenent, and my body was hurting all over, I’d think of someone else getting hurt…

One last time, Horn swiped at me, a whole body upper-cut, he pushed me up and away. I couldn’t see where, didn’t even try. I flew, and I fell, it couldn’t have been much more than a second or two, but it felt like an eternity,

I fell, but I didn’t hit the hard ground. Instead, the ground gave way. Was this how it ended? Everything giving way. I heard someone say something, a high voice, it reminded me of my voice-changer. The ground reverted, pushing me up again. I flew again, but slower, not as high. I couldn’t quite see, my hair was in the way.

This time, I didn’t hit the ground at all. Someone caught me, and hugged me to him. It felt like he wearing metal, but it wasn’t cold. I opened my eyes, but all I could see through my watery eyes was a blue-white smudge.

“It’s alright sweety, I’m here now.”


	23. Chapter 23

Gadget 4.3  
*** Skip ***  
The city sprawled beneath her, broken, empty. People were staying inside, or had fled town early on in the chaos.

If you walked through the street, you wouldn’t see the extent of the chaos. It was, generally speaking, too spread out. A thousand cuts instead of a single strike.

Her helmet protected her from most of the wind, but she could still feel the air rushing past her skin. She looked around, spotting the locations of the adult heroes. They’d spread out, taking different approaches to flank and surround the enemy.

Hallucca, the mayor. She’d talked to her a few times, or, rather, Rodeo had talked to her, and she’d been nearby. Skip still couldn’t really believe that that woman had been a supervillain.

Supervillains were supposed to be ugly, mean, have big scary supervillain bases under volcanoes, and be allergic to sunlight. Not win elections. She probably didn’t even monologue!

Then, she saw something hit a big sprawling building. Probably the high-school, she’d have to go there in a couple of years. She wasn’t sure what it was, but it was big.

Skip activated her earpiece. “Sumting big just jumped on a building, west of Armsmaster.” She said. Her statement immediately acknowledged by the adults.

She was falling again. She looked down. She’d had a tutor explain about height, speed, and time. Difficult stuff. Hard math, but she sort of understood the basics. The higher she went, the faster she’d go once near the ground. But, by aiming her power to the side, she could trade height for distance. She braced herself, this jump would take some aim.

She landed on the steel roof of an empty car. The roof bent downwards, giving almost no resistance, the frame of the car, too, squished beneath her feet. As she hit the ground, she started moving, getting herself into position. She sank into the ground, the earth around her bending downwards. Quickly at first, but then slower. She made a small jump backwards, the deepest point of her crater moving. Not in the centre of the circle, but still right beneath her feet. She hoped her aim was right. It was hard with big jumps.

Skip had two favourite moments. The top of a big jump, when everything was silent, and the bottom. It was like the highest point in a rollercoaster, things would only get faster, and quickly at that.

Her tutor had explained once that she was, in addition to her moving-hitting-shaking stuff, also a breaking person. She’d taken her to an army base, where they trained pilots. There was a big rotating machine there. All the airplane soldiers wore special suits when going in, but she hadn’t. The machine was basically a chair that spun really fast. It’d been amazing fun, especially as the machine went faster and faster. The only hard part was actively holding back her power.

This, the moment after a big landing, reminded her of that. She saw that she’d gone as deep as the crater would go, and stopped her power. At a crazy speed, she launched up in the air again. Wind whistling past her. It was loud, but it was a good sound.

Skip looked down again, this time, she saw something illuminating the figure on the high-school. It was big, bigger then she’d guessed. She also recognized it.

Why was Horn destroying the building.

“The big thing, I think it’s Horn. He’s real big…”

She looked further, trying to scout. She couldn’t see much, everything was dark. When she was falling down again, Horn jumped down.

This time, when she landed, she waited a bit longer to deactivate her power, reducing her speed a bit. She could still jump over buildings, but now she could actually aim.

Horn was chasing someone, a couple of streets over. She could see his massive body rampaging through. It was scary. Why would he do such a thing?

Sure, he was a bit weird every now and then, but that was just who he was. Even when he did something scary, he didn’t really mean it like that.

On the third jump, she saw what he was doing. He was chasing someone with long blonde hair. Skip was pretty sure Hallucca didn’t have long blonde hair that long.

As she saw Horn swipe at her, she saw Armsy running down the street, towards them.

She jumped, aiming for the ground ahead of the girl. Hopefully, she’d be able to catch her.

Horn struck the girl, and Skip launched herself forwards, hitting the ground at the same time the girl did. She aimed, she would go up, the girl would go towards Armsy.

She landed in front of Horn, and brought herself to a stop. Horn seemed to slow down. Wherever he was in that big gnarly growth, he’d seen her.

“Horn… what’s wrong?” she asked.

It looked at her, even though she couldn’t see the things eyes. It was covered in dust, and had a streak of what seemed to be blood on it. The horns looked weird, not smooth like they normally were, but wrong, like there was stuff growing on the surface.

It grumbled something. ”Move.”

“Horn, calm down… what are you.”

Horn kept walking, moving around her.

“Horn… stop it. Please… You’re not yourself.” Skip moved herself, placing her in his path again.

“Move, Aside.” He grumbled again. He sounded angry. In pain.

“Horn…” she pleaded, but he did not stop.

One of his feet hit her. Not hard, not intentional, he just didn’t care anymore. Skip was thrown backwards, bouncing over the asphalt like a pebble on water.

*** Armsmaster ***

He had her, she was safe now.

Armsmaster looked down at the child in his arms. Her hair was longer, much longer, hair extensions? Then there was the outfit. Sweaty gym clothes, covering a white dress. There was blood, dirt, dust. Her left arm was dangling down, broken by the beast in front of them. Horn, from what Skip was saying.

He wasn’t sure what to do about that, she’d saved his daughter. Social protocol demanded that he buy her a beer. But, social protocol and basic knowledge of biology also told him that that would be a very bad idea. He’d have to think of something else.

Sely was crying, her eyes red with tears when they weren’t hiding in his armour. Had she noticed it was her father come to rescue her? Did it even matter?

He hit her in the neck with a small needle. A combination painkiller and antibiotic, her sobbing started to slow, she’d be all right. Slowly, he brought her down, laying her on the ground before him, when suddenly, Skip yelled out. Horn was actually running forward, through the girl.

He looked at Horn, the leg that had hit the young ward was deformed, which meant her power had done its work. She’d be perfectly fine, as long as she didn’t land in a fire or anything similar.

His mind raced through his options. What did he know about his enemies, and what did he have to counter him.

Horn was a brute, grew ivory-like material from his body. The more of the material, the more strength it granted his body. At the same time, the durability of the horns also seemed to increase with the amount generated at a time. The question then, was whether that durability was purely his horns, or if it also affected his real body. If it didn’t, he could be beaten by attacks that circumvented the horns. If it did increase his durability…

Horn was almost there. Armsmaster dashed forward, the power-armour in his legs kicked in, launching him forward. If the records were correct, this was the first time Horn was in this form. It was new to him, and Armsmaster could use that.

Just before reaching him, Armsmaster dropped down, skidding between the beasts legs. It didn’t even notice, too intent on attacking his daughter. Then, once under the torso of the beast, he launched his grappling hook attachment at one of its front legs, reeling it in at just the right moment.

Horn stumbled and fell over, not quite aware of what had happened. Armsmaster activated his earpiece with a set of eye movements. “Skip, can you get to the girl?”

She replied, although she sounded like she was crying. “Yes… but… why is Horn so angry?”

Shit… why did people keep asking him this kind of stuff. Luckily, Rodeo came to the rescue. “He’s not angry at you Skip, just angry at the world. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

While the local was comforting the girl, Colin changed his channel. “Em Pee, can you?”

“Already on it Beardsy.” She replied.

He returned his focus to the battle. Horn had turned around, his attention fully on the man with the halberd.

“Well then, manbeast, now that I have your attention, let’s dance.”

It leaped forward, planning to land on him and let its weight to the job. A bad move. Detaching his grappling hook from the leg, Armsmaster jumped back, and activated the plasma blade, striking at its front with the heated edge.

Where it hit, the growths were split cleanly in two. Good, that would work. However, within seconds, it started re-growing.

It swiped its paw, arm, claw, straight into the halberd. It was cut off cleanly, but the severed parts flew straight on. He’d have to watch out for that, too clean a cut could spell his doom. His opponent probably couldn’t launch parts on his own, probably, so it wouldn’t do to help him get a ranged attack.

Colin decided to go on the defensive, getting a feel for his enemies’ movement. The biology was non-standard, hardly biology to speak of, but there was a pattern to its design. It was like looking at another tinker’s work. At the start, it didn’t make sense, but when you looked closer, patterns started appearing.

A deep layer of horns moving in the shoulder, and half a second later, he would start swiping his left claw again, that twitch in its leg meant that he was getting ready for a leap.

Colin had often been criticized for not being able to read body language. It was true, sort of. He had a hard time with faces, emotions, that sort of stuff. This right here? Reading his opponent? He was good at it. Perhaps it was his rather clinical look on things that did it. Action, reaction. Cause and Effect. These weren’t just scientific principles, they were universal ones. Move this way, then that way. There was a pattern to all of it, and once you understood that pattern, you understood your opponent. Once you understood your opponent, you had already defeated him.

The man before him? This Horn? Armsmaster didn’t know how he thought, why he had attacked Sely, why he hurt his former ally, an eleven year old girl. Why he shouted what he was shouting. He didn’t need to. He knew how it moved, better than it did itself.

Once, he’d taken a hit, the claw leaving a small gouge in his chestplate.

Twice, he had to dive away at the last second to dodge a hit, and mud now caked Armsmaster’s left shoulder.

But that had been thirty seconds ago. Right now, Armsmaster knew his opponent, and he danced. Every strike it made, he sidestepped before it even started its swing. Every time it pounced, Colin was away before it even left the ground.

He enjoyed it, in a perverse way. He knew he shouldn’t. People had gotten hurt, houses were ruined, and his own daughter would need medical treatment. It was a sad thing that heroes like him were needed. But right now, in this moment, he could almost sing. There was pleasure in utterly out-thinking an enemy, the adrenaline coursing through his veins, mind, body and technology working in perfect synchronicity.

Only one thing stopped the fight from being perfect. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t do any lasting damage.

*** Myrddin ***

Colin had a daughter, he still couldn’t quite believe it. He still couldn’t quite believe that the boy had actually hooked up with someone, even though he’d been there to see it.

What a mission that had been, three weeks on a cruise-ship, trying to prevent the kidnapping of the president’s daughter, all the while staying undercover as civilians. He’d gone along as chaperone, supervising the first real Protectorate mission for Mouse Protector, Chevalier, and Armsmaster. It’d gone pretty well, until Mouse got her paws on a cocktail bar. Their identities, and the mission with it, had almost been exposed when Armsmaster had somehow managed to woo the girl that had seen them and get her to swear secrecy.

Colin, being the socially observant person he was, hadn’t even known he was flirting with the girl. He just wanted to show her his newest gadget, a spear that could quickly increase in length. Didn’t really help when he stated that his spear was much longer than the six inches Annabelle was implying.

Not to mention the attachment that launched white containment foam…

But, knowing the entire story, he just couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

Before him stood Mouse Protector, who had just used her teleportation spell. That much he bought. Perfectly possible.

Holding her left hand was a girl that couldn’t be older than twelve, wearing a blue costume with orange lines zigzagging over it. A powerful enchantment protected her, allowing her to bounce on concrete, steel, incoming bullets, pretty much anything really, like it was a trampoline. He could buy that too, magic powers came in all shapes and forms.

The problem was the girl she was carrying in her right arm. Was her hair ridiculously long when it had been quite short on a picture taken only a few months ago, sure, but that could be explained away. What couldn’t be explained away, was her nose, her ears, and the shape of her eyes.

The universe was playing a trick on him, a test of faith perhaps. It had done this before, but never to quite such an extreme degree.

The last time had also involved Armsmaster, and had come in the form of a letter from marketing about two years ago.

They’d announced they were discontinuing Myrddin’s Magical unMentionables, in order to focus on their newest, most successful line of underwear.

He strengthened his resolve. Everything being an illusion or the universe testing his faith was par for the course, and no reason to stop doing his job.

“Do you have everything you need to perform first aid, Mouse Protector?”

“Of course Mr Potter, you go on ahead to the fight, I’ll take care of these girls and teepee back to you once I’m ready!”

“Good, any advice for what kind of opposition to expect?”

“It’s big, it’s gnarly, and Halbeard is kicking its ass, not sure where the queen bee is though.”

“Got it, see you in a few minutes then.”

Myrddin started walking away from them, better to have some space if he wanted to use his mobility spells, and the time for stealth was over. He grasped his staff, and started drawing, one sign for partial envelopment of the self, lowering density, and therefore weight. Another below him, a portal to the elemental plane of air, which would rush out behind him and propel him forwards.

Behind him, just before taking off he heard the young ward ask something of Mouse Protector.

“Miss Mouse… what happened to his lightning bolt scar?”

Inwardly, Myrddin groaned. The spirit of the universe was testing him indeed.

Then, he soared forwards. It wasn’t flight, not really, he hadn’t mastered a spell for that yet, but it was a good imitation, long, far jumps in which he propelled himself forward, the winds roaring behind him.

After a minute, he reached the site of the battle. The beast-man, Horn, was shouting as if he was possessed. Every statement made less sense than the previous. He had lost it, a berserker rage. One that made him attacked unarmed children. Maybe they could restrain it, if not; it’d have to be put down.

Armsmaster was handling it, dodging every strike before it started, his plasma blade cutting deep gouges into the creature. But it wasn’t enough; it was regenerating, slowly but steadily. They would need to strike at it’s true form, but how? A fireball perhaps, hot air could penetrate between the growths where steel could not reach. He observed the battlefield, and his eyes were drawn to a nearby road. A woman was running towards the site of the battle, deforming the ground beneath her with every step.

He recognized her, Hallucca, the target. A potent witch, capable of warping reality to her whims. A rather attractive one too. The last time they’d fought, she’d taken off his robe and wizard hat with her power. He wondered, would she strike the same way again, necessitating a repeat performance? He moved himself forward, ready to meet the witch head on.

*** Paige ***

Finally, she’d reached them. Horn was fighting one of the invaders, a skilled knight in blue armour with silver trimming, his halberd glowing with power. The master of arms of the Protectorate.

Two birds with one stone. She readied herself, the new plan to take down Horn clearly in her mind. It would slaughter the invader as well. She gazed, not at them, but at the air in front of them.

Oxygen, Nitrogen, water vapour, dust, ionized molecules coming from the halberd, and there it was, CO2, she thought back to the trick she performed on her handmaiden’s hair, doubling the pattern.

Then, she was blasted back, skidding over the ground; she warped it up under her, and landed on her feet. A dozen metres in front of her he stood, the wizard of Chicago, his staff still glowing, a symbol drawn in the air with it.

“Stand aside invader, this beast is hunting my loyal subjects, it demands punishment.”

The man looked at her, his staff ready at hand. She could see him smile beneath the hood. An attractive smile. Perhaps she would take him as her concubine one his army had been defeated.

“Armsmaster has everything under control, Miss Bourbon, so I’m afraid I’m going to have to take you in.”

Take her in… The scoundrel still thought he had legitimate authority, in her kingdom, nonetheless. Very well then, her plan would work on him the same way it would work on Horn.

She gazed again, right in front of the man’s luscious lip, a full white beard covering his jawline.

“I take it you’re not surrendering then.” The wizard said, a hint of disappointment in his voice.

When she was blown back again, she saw the flaw in her plan. Making the air unbreathable didn’t mean much if her opponent could conjure extradimensional gale winds at a whim.

Very well then, she gazed at his clothes, twisting and shrinking them.

It worked, sort of, his clothes were definitely hurting him. That is, until the moment he banished them with a wave of his staff. A staff she couldn’t affect correctly. He stood before her, grey chest-hair covering a magnificent set of muscles, the only thing he was wearing was a rather large pair of woolly underpants, blue with yellow stars on it. The man smiled, and drew another sigil, another airblast, he was still taking the non-lethal route. This time, however, the air was scorching hot.

However, she’d been prepared this time, her feet encased in concrete keeping her standing up. As the man’s attack increased in intensity, breathing became more difficult, but she kept growing the matter around her feet. Then, she remembered something. Hair was, to her at least, not alive.

She gazed at the man’s magnificent beard, growing it, twisting it into a thick, tight braid, and twisting it around his neck. He reacted, but it was almost too late, he dropped his staff while pulling at his beard, trying to buy himself some air.

*** Emma ***

Ever since she’d gotten her powers, she’d mentally prepared herself. She knew people with powers got into fights. It was on the news all the time. She even knew people with powers fought endbringers. Died fighting endbringers. For that, too, she’d been prepared.

Naked old wizards that worked out and got strangled by their own beards? What could possibly have prepared her for that.

The shock had been enough to send her falling of the bicycle, and she’d skinned her knee in the process. It was nothing compared to the bruises she already had, but it still hurt. When she looked at the battle again, she looked past the naked old man, at the endbringer.

It was fighting Armsmaster, or rather, had been fighting Armsmaster. It had probably gotten frustrated, and went hunting for easier targets, right now, that meant it was running towards her, or, hopefully, the naked wizard and the woman that had stuck herself to the ground. Problem was, neither of them seemed to have noticed.

Emma shouted. “Endbringer incoming!”

When the two looked at her, she pointed past them, to the beast. When they looked at it, running at them, the naked old man’s beard stopped strangling him. He managed to grab his staff, and started drawing something in the air. The woman, meanwhile, was looking at the endbringer, trying to her power on it. For a second, it’s wicked-looking outer layer seemed to be melting, bubbling and boiling, but something happened to stop that.

The old man was done with his sigil, and wind blew out of a hole in reality in front of him. He was thrown backwards by his own power. Emma got hit too, by a directed blast, and was thrown backwards as well, out of the beasts path. Her spear however, still hovered where she left it. The spark of electricity between her and the object had been weakened by the wind-blast, but, apparently, it could go much further then she’d thought once established.

She looked back at the endbringer, and noticed the woman was still in its path. The windblast had hit her, but her legs had been locked to the pavement, keeping her in place. She was panicking, trying to tear the rock from her legs, but it was too late.

The endbringer screamed something. She didn’t understand, endbringers didn’t talk, did they? Nonetheless, she was able to puzzle together what it was saying. “I’m better than you, the people will be free of your chains.”

Emma flinched, closing her eyes. She didn’t want to see this.

She heard a bloodcurdling scream from the woman, and an impact, the sound of shattering bones.


	24. Chapter 24

Gadget 4.4  
Horn rushed towards her, his bulk impervious to her powers again. She tried increasing the amount of CO2 again, but he moved too fast for it to affect her.

Very well then, she would simply have to jump out of the way. She readied herself to budge the road below her upwards. But it wouldn’t give.

Of course. She’d locked herself in place. The bearded man was sending out another wave of air, knocking the strange girl with the floating spear and bicycle away. It didn’t work on her.

Horn came closer, she could see his filthy face, teeth rotting from drug abuse, sweat and dirt covering his body. Was this it? Would she really be defeated by this peasant? This beast?

Yes, it did indeed seem like she was going to lose this. Horn kept on charging her, intent on rubbing in her face that he killed her most loyal subject. Sely was gone, not even her body remained.

She screamed, moments before the beast hit her. Whatever passed for its head came for her, it was like time slowed down in her last moments. She saw the horns moving closer and closer, saw inside of a horn, saw the middle of the tangle of horns, saw the man inside, bending himself around like a madman, controlling the unnatural body, and then, saw the open air again. Before her, one of the invaders, Armsmaster, was running after Horn.

She turned around, and saw Horn brought to a standstill. White splinters flying through the air. The force pushed Horn’s front half upwards. He stood upright, balancing on just his back legs. The hit had been a hard one, but the front of his body was already regrowing. This wasn’t going to work. Eventually, the invading Protectorate capes would tire out, while Horn would keep regenerating like the cockroach he was.

How, then, would she take him down. A hole beneath it? A gas attack? She looked at the girl, electricity arcing around her body. Would she be able to hit Horn? Given a path?

She’d need water then, it would seep around the beasts horns, connecting everything to the body inside.

Armsmaster had struck the back leg, making Horn fall down again. The man who’d shattered it’s front, some peasant whose name she was not aware of, was talking to the girl now.

She mentally went through her impressive array of abilities. Once, they’d all been the same in her mind, just barely catalogued by effect, called upon through imagination. Now, she could call upon them through their mechanisms. For now, she would call forth, add to what was already there. Only instead, add to what was not there yet. Or at least, just barely not there. Some water was always present.

She opened the gates, and water flowed through it. Something was wrong, however. The water wasn’t interacting with anything, and there was far too much of it. The gates, microscopic areas where matter entered through, were tearing, growing, spilling out much more than they should. Spider web cracks crawled through the air. Something was really wrong, had her power betrayed her? Had one of the invaders done something to her?

The cracks kept spreading, slowly growing towards her, she tried to run, but her feet were still contained on the ground. She looked around, but no-one else seemed to be noticing what was happening, they were fighting Horn.

The cracks reached her, and started splitting her skin. Moving reality in different ways, she screamed, again, her body was wrong. The world was wrong.

*** Emma ***

“It’s all right little miss, it’s not an endbringer, just a crazy cape.”

Emma opened her eyes again, trying to see through the tears. The man in front of her had a red visor and bodysuit. Some kind of hero, although she didn’t recognize him. Would he be offended by that?

He was squatting, closer to her than strictly safe, but for now, her lightning wasn’t arcing towards him. Behind him, the beast was fighting with Armsmaster again, with the naked man giving back-up. There were a lot of fragments lying on the ground, but the thing seemed to be intact, regenerating after every hit.

The man in front of her held out his hand. “Come on then Sparky, let’s get you back on your feet.”

Emma took his hand in hers. A few short arcs of electricity tried moving towards the man, but they couldn’t find anything interesting on his suit. She wondered what it was made of, rubber maybe. It was easier to control now that most of her electricity seemed to be going to the spear that was still floating in the air.

“My name isn’t Sparky mister.” She replied politely. It wouldn’t do to have him think she was called something she wasn’t.

The man looked at her, at her clothes. “I’m guessing you haven’t picked anything yet.”

Emma wondered, picking a name? Wasn’t that a parent’s job? She sure hadn’t picked Emma for herself, her parents had done that.

Then it hit her, the man was talking about cape names, of course, that made sense.

She nodded to the man, who replied by putting a hand around her shoulder. With his other hand, he gestured towards the beast-thing that wasn’t an endbringer.

“Very well then, Miss no-name McSparkyPants. I’ve been thinking. This guy, this Horn fellow, as you can see, he regenerates. Now, my boss, the guy with the relatively unimpressive beard over there, mister Armsmaster, has been cutting away at the thing. That doesn’t work, but if you pay some attention, you can see there’s a lot of movement beneath the outer layer.”

Emma listened, paying too much attention to reply to the sparkypants comment. She nodded. “Yeah, I see.” It looked strange, inhuman, but there was a sort of elegance to it, like her father’s pocket watch.

“Now, my suggestion here, is that we take that spear of yours, and launch it right between the legs. It’ll be like putting a stick in the wheel of a bicycle. You think you can do that?”

Emma looked at her target. It was trying to swat at Armsmaster again, and failing to hit him.

She nodded. She could do this, she could be a hero.

Mentally, she retreated inwards, towards her power. The spear was buzzing with it, almost alive. Filled with her electrical charge. She took what held it upwards, the part of her power she’d put on cruise control, and made it move forwards. It moved, faster than before. The electricity inside it responding to her thoughts, moving forwards. And as the electrical charge moved, so too did the metal that contained it.

It was fast, hard to aim, especially since it was still tethered to her body with yellow-blue electrical arcs.

The man beside her held a hand to his ear, “Spear incoming boss” he said, talking over an earpiece.

Armsmaster looked their way, and manoeuvred himself, and with that, the beast. The spear penetrated it from the side, and Emma could feel it crushing the horns. Then, she stopped it before it went through. The beast tried to move, and she could feel the crush inside of it, like a machine crushing itself against the strange metal.

It couldn’t move half it’s body, and the other half started thrashing around wildly. Mentally, Emma cheered herself on. She had defeated a villain, without having to hurt anyone.

Suddenly, the naked man cried out. “Backfire incoming.”

She saw him leap to the side. Armsmaster jumped away as well. The man beside her grabbed her, and pushed her to the floor. All the while, lightning still arced between her and the beast, holding the spear in place.

Then, the world shattered. Water came into existence, at the location where the woman had been, and exploded outwards. In the middle of it, Emma thought she could see a body.

Before she could react, the water had reached the beast, soaking it. She couldn’t really see it, but she could feel it with her power, which arced through its entire structure. It, for lack of better words, short-circuited, flowing out of the spear into the beast, as well as the man inside.

She stopped her power, all the while feeling how it was flowing through the man, through his skin, his muscles, his heart.

She wasn’t fast enough. When the water had reached her, she already knew it was too late. Before her eyes, she saw the beast crumbling. Within it, at the core, the man she’d just killed.

She was evil, wrong, a murderess.

What would her parents say… She’d abandoned her brother, gotten captured by crazy people, and now she’d murdered someone.

As she started crying, the man besides her hugged her, burying her face against him.

*** Chevalier ***

Chevalier hadn’t joined the fight. It wasn’t that he was afraid of his opponents, it was that he trusted his allies. And while they were fighting the big fight, he could find out what was happening.

That had led him to the enemy base, now in tatters. Here and there, people were collecting what they could. Looters, criminals trying to salvage what they could from a botched operation. They weren’t what he was there for. It was time for big picture stuff.

The people they’d found here, the ones who had taken the drugs. They’d been powered, yet not. His sight, his secondary vision, it didn’t work on them, there was nothing to see.

Except the one time, one of Hallucca’s minions that had been at the water treatment plant. It had been almost invisible, undefined, but there had been something there. A potential trigger then? Brought to the forefront by the drugs he had been taking? Or was it something else? He had been stronger than the others, a lieutenant.

He ran on, trying to figure out what was happening. Most of the people seemed leaderless, afraid. Running away from him on sight.

He turned a corner, and saw what he had been looking for, a man loading something into a car, bags. Probably filled with money, but maybe with something else entirely. Better than that, the same ghostly aura.

The man turned, and stared back. He looked strange, He was wearing an expensive, well-tailored suit, but he was wavy somehow, like he was out of focus. Chevalier blinked, and the man had moved into the car, trying to get it to start.

Strange. Up until now, all the artificial powers they’d encountered had been physical, a mutation or some such granting the ability.

He launched himself forwards, extending his cannon-blade, slicing the tires of the car. He’d have to get to the bottom of this.

Having taken down the car, his vision started wavering again, the man was running, outside of the car once again.

He pondered his options. At range, his arsenal was limited. He wasn’t a mover, and this man had at least some form of teleportation. He could shoot the man, but that would almost certainly end in a red puddle on the pavement.

His options limited, he chose to take the secure path. He walked to the car, and looked inside it. A suitcase, filled with several things. There was money, quite a lot of it, but not enough to be a full stash. There were also a few bags filled with white powder. Not enough to have filled the suitcase. The man had made off with some of them. He took a closer look at the bags. To his normal sight, they were plain. To his second sight, they hummed with power, not enough to attract attention, but there was certainly something there.

He wondered about the man he’d just let escape. Had he been the mastermind behind this operation? Or had he just been a puppet, ordered around by someone behind the scenes?

*** Gadget ***

Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep.

The sound was annoying. I was finally able to sleep, and now the alarm was going. I moved my arm to put it on snooze, I could always wake up later.

The pain was what really woke me up. I wondered why it hurt so much to move my left arm, when it came back to me. It’d been broken.

My mind was still fuzzy on the details, and it definitely didn’t hurt as much as it should’ve but I also noticed one of my legs wasn’t moving well.

My right arm was another story, something warm was holding it in place.

Giving up on getting some more rest, I opened my eyes. The first thing I thought was that this wasn’t my room. The second thing I thought was that my room had been melted down. The third thing I thought was what had happened to Paige. Something had attacked her.

I looked around, noticing that I was in a hospital, all kinds of wonderfully advanced machines attached to me. Although, not as many as I’d liked. Then I looked to the side of my bed.

Dad was sitting there, holding my arm in his and reading something on a tablet with the other. He looked at me, noticing that I was awake, and gave my hand a small squeeze. He looked like he was about to start saying something when he stopped himself halfway through. After a few seconds, he started talking.

“Hey sweety.”

“Hi dad.”

He sat that for a bit, while I was starting to wake up a bit more. My head still felt fuzzy, probably painkillers. After a minute or so, the only sound in the room being the repetitive beeps, he said something again.

“I head what you did for that girl, Emma. That was very brave of you.”

I wondered, how much did he know? What had Emma told him? How had he gotten here? I thought back, tried to remember what had happened. I’d been running from horn, I’d fallen into some sort of squishy pavement, and someone in armour had caught me. I vaguely remembered a woman too, and I teleported somewhere, but after that my mind went blank.

“Your mother… She’ll heal, but she has a long recovery ahead of her. Hallucca… Something she did restricted blood flow to her brain for a bit, and quite a few bones were broken…”

That… that was sort of a shock. I’d known that the queen had gotten angry at her, but hearing what she’d done…

Was it strange that it didn’t really change my opinion of Paige? I’d known she was crazy, that she’d destroyed my home. But that had been the queen, not her. Right?

“Dad… is Paige…” I wanted to ask something, but speaking took a lot out of me. I was more tired than I thought.

“She’d in the ICU honey, being kept under anaesthesia. She can’t hurt you anymore.”

It… It kind of hurt that dad thought that Paige had tried to hurt me… It was Horn that was the scary one. I gathered my energy, getting ready to give a full reply.

“Dad… She’s… She’s crazy…”

“I know Sely, but that psychopath can’t hurt you right now.”

“No dad… I mean… She’s really crazy… She doesn’t really know what she’d doing…”

I stopped, gathering energy. Dad grabbed a glass of water from the nightstand and handed it to me, waiting until drank a bit.

The water helped. A lot.

“She... She really thought she was a queen… She can’t help it dad, but… She was nice, beneath the crazy. Is… is she going to the birdcage for being crazy?”

Dad looked at me, and smiled, one of his hands brushing through my hair.

“I know some people rather high up in the PRT and Protectorate… I’ll see what I can do.”

I smiled back, “Thank you dad.”

We stayed there for a while, just me, dad, the beeping machine… After a few minutes, my eyes became heavy again, and I started to fall asleep. Things were going to be all right.

 

*** Assault ***

Ethan was happy, giddy even. The mission had been a success. The villain captured. Another villain taken down. The village saved. He still couldn’t quite believe that the people here called Westlake a city. It really wasn’t, at barely ten thousand people, but they were rather obsessed about it.

But that wasn’t what Ethan was happy about. It wasn’t even that they were probably going to have an awesome new ward joining them in Brockton Bay, if talks with her parents were successful.

No, the reason that he was happy, was that Colin had told him to fly home on his own.

And that meant only one thing.

He entered the plane, sat in the pilot’s seat, and suddenly remembered that he had absolutely no idea how to turn on a plane outside of simulators.

Then, a voice greeted him over the intercom.

“Hello Assault, I’m dragon, and I’ll be flying you home.”

Of course… Of course Armsmaster had gotten dragon to fly him home. And all he’d ever wanted was to fly a fighter plane.

And marry his Puppy, but that plan was already in the works.

“Hello Dragon, nice of you to co-pilot for me.” he quipped.

The display turned on, and showed a digital face, smiling vaguely. Ethan waited as she started up the plane, and went for take-off.

Then, she asked a question.

“So, Assault, tell me about this girl I’ve heard about. Colin’s daughter.”


	25. Chapter 25

Arc 1 – Epilogue

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♦Topic: Hallucca

In: Boards ► People ► America ► West ► Wyoming ► Villains

 

Jigsaw (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)

Posted on June 20, 2007:

 

Well then, here's the thread for Halluca, the sole active supervillain in the town of Westlake. She is generally rated as a shaker, and is personally responsible for large amounts of property damage.

 

People who see her are advised to vacate the area without giving her an excuse to attack, and inform the local PRT office.

 

(Showing Page 17 of 17)

 

► PRT Westlake (PRT Official)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Yes I can officially confirm that she is in custody, Further details will be supplied later tonight during a press release, attended by me and Armsmaster, who has been so gracious as to stay in town for a while to help get the electricity and water supply working again.

 

► Halbeardbutt

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Armsmaster's staying in town? awsome, he's the best.

I just hope he doesn't help repairing the school, I heard it got totally trashed.

 

► StandingBullseye

Replied on March 17, 2010:

So Westlake goes dark, literally, for about three days, villains and vigilantes run amok, and we don't get any answers? what the hell happened and why were there no reinforcements the moment shit went down? Seriously the PRT is so useless sometimes.

 

► Rodeo (Verified Cape)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@StandingBullseye

 

Don't know why there was no response the first day. wasn't the first time the big offices have left us out to hang. We've been asking for assistance in dealing with Hallucca for years, but somehow they won't get it through their head that crowd-control isn't really something I can use to take down a lethally dangerous madwoman.

 

Many props to Armsmaster, Myrddin, Assault, Chevalier and Mouse Protector for finally coming to help.

 

► FireGuitar (Unverified Cape) (Temp-banned)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@Rodeo

Dude, this is, like, the fiftieth fucking time you asked for help complaining that Hallucca was destroying the town. Boy who cried Hallucca much?

 

► Rodeo (Verified Cape)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@FireGuitar

 

City, it's the CITY of Westlake.

 

► FireGuitar (Unverified Cape) (Temp-banned)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Oh shut it with your fucking inferiority complex

 

[User given a temporary ban for this post: No personal attacks people]

 

► WhiteWizard

Replied on March 17, 2010:

So, to get back on-topic, Anyone know what's going to happen to her now that she's arrested? Birdcage? Or are they just going to let her escape for no reason and go through all this again?

 

Also, there's this guy saying she was the mayor over in the Westlake General thread, any confirmation on that?

 

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 15, 16, 17

 

♦Topic: WTF is happening in Westlake

In: Boards ► Events ► America

 

Bagrat (Original Poster) (The Guy In The Know)

Posted on March 16, 2010:

 

So appearantly, about two days ago, the town of Westlake was hit by something during a capefight between two locals.The power went out, and the biggest building in town melted down, as you can see HERE.

 

Making this even more interesting is that, as covered on wyomingnews.blogspot.org, some sort of powergranting trump drug has been spread through the town.

 

Cape's involved are Hallucca and Horn. Both are generally small-time, although Horn got some press after participating in an Endbringer battle last year

 

If anyone more familiar with the local cape scene can help, that'd be nice

 

Edit: according to one of my sources, several heavy-hitting Protectorate capes are heading there right now.

Edit2: Chevalier, Myrrddin, Mouse Protector, Armsmaster and Assault are confirmed as having dealt with the situation

 

(Showing Page 17 of 17)

 

► HalbeardButt

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Everyone always says Horn is scary af, but I met the guy and he seemed really nice, was the only one trying to actually do something about Hallucca.

 

► StarWitcher

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@Yellow126

 

Dude, if anything supports the 'capes are magic' theory then it's people like Myrddin and Hallucca, even if just some capes are magic.

 

► Yellow126

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@StarWitcher

How is pocket dimension any different from, say, throwing fireballs? Just because it seems like "magic or someshizzle" is the best explanation doesn't mean it is, we probably just don't know what specific thing Hallucca can do.

 

► AngelMoon

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Wait, so if the Protectorate in Westlake only has a very subtle master cape, and a ten-year old that's not going to be anywhere near a fight, how are they supposed to work?

 

► BioWeed (Veteran Member) (Verified Ent)

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@AngelMoon

They don't, that's the entire point. Thing is, Hallucca was relatively content as long as her dealers were left alone.

 

► StarWitcher

Replied on March 17, 2010:

@Yellow126

Of course, so the whole trance stat thing, the appearantly granting people powers thing. It's all just "Powers"? Note that you haven't actually explained why 'powers' is a better explanation than 'magic'.

 

► EndlessLoop

Replied on March 17, 2010:

Wait, so, did Hallucca kill Horn, or was it something else? and was she always strong enough to take over a town?

 

@StarWitcher and Yellow126

Back on topic please, for the source of the trump-drugs, see the wiki article on RoidMaster.

 

End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 15, 16, 17

 

■

 

♦ Private message from xX_BloodRaven_Xx:

 

Halbeardbutt: Saw you online, you make it out okay?

xX_BloodRaven_Xx: Yeah, mom loaded us in the car the moment our apartment started melting. I'm at an uncle's out in the boonies right now. Fucking sucks here, no computer and shitty internet, I can barely browse PHO. life is suffering I guess.

 

Halbeardbutt: Dad told mom to leave town too, even before that happened. Said something about the mayor being Hallucca, Can you believe it? I'd love to see her fight it out with Horn, it's about time we had some real cape action in town.

 

xX_BloodRaven_Xx: You still in contact with your dad? Does he know what happened? Tinfoils on the net are going crazy.

Halbeardbutt: Not sure, he called us this morning, saying something about reinforcements coming in. Can't find much else though, although there is this article.

xX_BloodRaven_Xx: Holy shit, Scarf-girl got kidnapped? What'd she do this time? throw eggs at Hallucca's windows or something?

Halbeardbutt: Probably something like that yeah, you remember that thing with the cat? I still don't understand how the teachers didn't know it was her.

xX_BloodRaven_Xx: Shit yeah that was awesome, there's still blue pawprints on some of those walls. She's sneaky though I'm pretty sure she's the one responsible for that one time I had blue hair.

Halbeardbutt: Well Gary, maybe you should pay some attention the next time you go all "my hair isn't black enough".

 

Anyway, you know what happened to the other people in class?

xX_BloodRaven_Xx: Not sure, bout half of them made it out I think,

xX_BloodRaven_Xx *New Message*: Saw that the forums that everything was over, I'm staying here another day while my dad goes with some guys to check it out, see you online tomorrow I hope?

 

Percy Johnson looked through the pages again. This sucked, this sucked so hard. Dad was probably drinking beers with Armsmaster right now while he was stuck in the middle of nowhere because it “wasn’t safe”. He just couldn’t believe it, the greatest tinker in the world was in his hometown and he couldn’t be there.

Maybe dad would get him a signed T-shirt or something…

*** Colin ***

Colin was pacing around in the small office. His daughter asleep, he now had the time to deal with the other situation.

Generally speaking, wards were clustered into larger teams. Cases like Skip, a single ward in a town with a near negligible protectorate presence, were rare. In her case, this was because of her status as an orphan, and the fact that her remaining family members, grandparents, were in the local nursing home. Perhaps if she was a bit older, and wanted to, she would move to a larger team where she could get more support, but given her age, the relatively peaceful situation here was a far better option for her.

Emma, however, was a different story. She was older, fourteen, a classmate of Sely’s even, and although she was feeling guilty over Horn’s death, she seemed to like the idea of joining a bigger wards team.

Of course, given that the girl was fourteen, he’d need to discuss things with her parents. Her older brother, who would probably make a full recovery from the tinker-tech drug, said his parents would probably be okay with it, but Colin wasn’t so sure.

In preparation for their arrival, he’d done a few background checks. He couldn’t find much on Emma or her brother, besides one case of underage drinking for the boy. Her mother had grown up in the area, studied international relations at a variety of prestigious universities, and eventually settled down as a house-wife. Her father’s record, however, simply said REDACTED, even when provided with his clearance level.

Then, when he had been sitting at Sely’s bedside this morning, Emma had come in and told him that her parents would be coming home in the afternoon via plane.

Something quite interesting, because civilian flights weren’t allowed to land on the local airfield right now, which was reserved for emergency services.

He had unmasked himself to the girl during her debriefing. She’d told him how she’d gotten her powers, and used them to defend herself and fend of patrols, until she was captured. Then, Sely had come out of nowhere and rescued her, hitting the guard in the head with a wrench, after which they’d apparently made plans to go after the real master-mind, a man by the name of O’Neill. Sely had taken the man’s wallet, but it had been lost in the following chaos. While heading out to go find him, they’d been attacked by an angry horn, after which he could finish the story himself.

He sat down at in the chair, hearing another plane arrive in the distance. He’d requisitioned an office in the airfield under his civilian name, with the cover story that he was a PRT official. Not entirely true, but not entirely false either. The moment their plane landed, the girls parents, Mister and Misses Smith, would be asked to come and meet with him here.

*** Agent Smith ***

Daniel Smith was a man that could be perfectly described in a single word: American. He had a beautiful wife, two lovely children, a house with a white picket fence, a rather expensive BBQ grill, several guns and rifles, and what could best be described as a license to kill.

Thus, when, in the middle of a mission in the middle east, disguised as a pleasure trip with his wife, he had heard that their small town had been taken over by criminals, he finished his mission as fast as possible, and returned home, commandeering a plane small enough to return directly to the small airfield near Westlake.

His wife had been able to contact his son, and they’d been informed as to their arrival.

Everything was apparently fine with their children, although their son had ended up in the hospital for a while, some sort of strange poison.

Thus, he was quite surprised at the man waiting for them when they exited the military plane they’d commandeered.

“Mr and Mrs Smith, I presume?” The man said. He looked stressed out, tired, someone who had been thrown into a situation far out of his league. Given the little PRT logo on his breast-pocket, he could believe that.

“I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage, Mister?”

“Blake Johnson, PRT.”

Of course, the PRT, a group of people simply obsessed with the parahuman population, so reliant upon their superpowered allies they didn’t even use guns. If you asked Daniel, a quick and simple assassination was a far better solution than sending out masked idiots to fight them on their terms.

“And your business with us is?”

“Ah, yes, I’m here to tell you that officer Wallis would like to talk to you?”

Wallis, not a name he remembered, someone from out of town? Typical PRT, trying to steamroll other agencies by demanding the attention of their agents.

“And why does officer Wallis want to talk to me?”

The man looked around, glancing at the other people in the area. He seemed annoyed to be asked questions, he was probably used to people simply doing what he wanted them to do.

He looked at Daniel and his wife again.

“Officer Wallis would like to talk to the both of you, in private.”

The man seemed to be talking in some sort of code, but not one that Daniel recognized, how annoying, the incompetence of these people. He was about to say this, when his wife elbowed him in the side, and continued the conversation herself.

“Of course officer Johnson, where can we meet officer Wallis?”

Did his wife know something he didn’t? Sure, the woman could charm anyone, from captains of industry to suspected terrorist leader to African dictators, but when would she have read the PRT code-books?

As they entered the makeshift office, consisting of a desk with a highly advanced laptop placed on it, Daniel observed this “Officer Wallis”.

The man was tall, he had brown haid, shortly cropped, and a well-trimmed beard. His eyes were intense, observant, purposeful. His stance was good, stable, but it seemed to fit a slightly heavier man. Daniel couldn’t quite place it, he wasn’t ex-military, but there was little of the fighting styles used by the PRT trainers. Self-learned then? For all the man’s muscle, he seemed unsure of himself. Unarmed, or less well-armed than he was used to. Probably not expecting physical trouble, or he would’ve brought a weapon. Social trouble then, the man wasn’t looking forward to this conversation.

Was this about the affair in Munich? Had his actions there interfered in some Protectorate operation? Inter-agency communication wasn’t always very effective.

“Good afternoon, Mr and Mrs Smith I presume?”

Before Daniel could take the initiative, his wife replied

“Yes, officer Wallis. Do you need to see an ID or?”

The man nodded to that, and before he could do anything, Lana showed him her passport. The man looked through it, checked something on his laptop, and returned it.

“I’m afraid I have some rather, complicated, news about Emma.” The man said.

Would that be his play? Threaten his daughter? He moved his hands, allowing easy access to his gun, but Lana nudged his hand away from it.

“I…Presume she hasn’t gotten herself into legal trouble?”

“The opposite, actually, I can truthfully say that she was instrumental in solving the… ehm… situation, here in Westlake.”

Lana beamed, pride filling her face, and Daniel wondered what he had missed.

Situation, privacy, legal trouble and it’s opposite, the PRT.

That couldn’t be… not his little girl….

If Emma was a parahuman…

Daniel felt incompetent, useless. He’d always told himself that what he did, he did to keep his children safe. If his daughter was a parahuman. She was going to go up against other parahumans. Brag as he might, he knew, deep down, that he was simply no match for most of them.

His wife was continuing the conversation. Asking about what happened, what Emma’s powers were, what the wards were like, how quickly they could move to a place with a well-equipped team where they could probably guide her with her powers. What schools were like in Brockton Bay, if the university there would accept their son.

Daniel just tried to find a solution to his problem, until he realized something.

The man they’d met at the plane, Blake Johnson, him he recognized, he’d been the local PRT guy for years. This man in front of them… Why Brockton Bay specifically. According to the news, it had been Myrddin, Chevalier, Armsmaster, Mouse Protector and Assault coming in. Going by what he knew from the pictures that had been in the article, Myrddin and Mouse Protector were a strict no, Assault didn’t have a beard, and Chevalier wasn’t stationed in Brockton Bay.

It also explained his stance, he was self-taught because he was simply above the martial arts normal people used.

His mind raced, what did he know about Armsmaster. A tinker, a master of technology, one of the more famous ones, unlike Dragon, who had massive suits filled to the brim with military and tinkertech weaponry, Armsmaster got up close and personal, a master of close-quarters combat. Not very charismatic in an extended conversation though, going by how the conversation was going. Not that it was in any way unpleasant, but he recognized his wife subtly steering the discussion, keeping everything copacetic.

God he loved that woman.

Eventually, their meeting was over, his wife having discussed everything she deemed important. While they were getting ready to go to the hospital, Daniel reached a decision, he told his wife to go on ahead, and turned to the man.

He grabbed his ID, the piece of plastic that identified him as a highest-level black-ops CIA operative, and showed it.

“Armsmaster, if there is ever anything I can do to help keep Emma safe, tell me.“

The man looked at the card, identifying some features, noting the, highly classified, sequence in the serial numbers that identified him as what he was, and nodded. Good, his little girl would be safe in this man’s hands.

*** The Queen ***

The queen looked around her room, gold and marble adorning every piece of furniture, A massive canopy bed covered in silk alone. This was a good place. A refuge, away from the hubbub of the peasantry. She relaxed, and looked at her project. A diamond lens of a rather peculiar shape, almost completely without imperfections. She smiled, the project had been interesting, and her minister of engineering had informed her that these would supply energy to her people at greatly reduced cost. A win-win situation, she could leisurely enjoy experimenting with her power, without harming the people of her realm through inaction or inattentiveness.

A knock on the door. Annoying, she had stated that she did not wish to be disturbed. She opened the door with her mind. Someone walked in, wearing a uniform of some sort.

“Good morning Miss Bourbon, how are you feeling today?”

The queen thought about that, how was she feeling right now? It wasn’t happiness, not exactly. What other word would apply?

“Content.”

The woman in the strange uniform smiled at that. She should talk to the royal tailor, she didn’t like these new uniforms her servants were wearing, They were white, sure, but not elegant at all.

“That’s good to hear. Now, I have a letter here from a friend of yours, so how about you can read that now, and in about half an hour, I’ll come back to get you for breakfast?”

A letter? From whom? One of her international relations? A fellow ruler requesting aid perhaps? She accepted the piece of paper the woman, girl really, gave her, and thanked her for her service. It was important to have the loyalty of your personnel after all. She observed the letter, written on a piece of paper. The writer had written it by hand, and attempted to make long flowing letters, but inexperience showed. The pen had left quite a few blots of ink, and some of the words were crossed out halfway through when there was a spelling mistake.

 

Dear Paige.

How are you? I am fine. I am staying with my dad in Brokto Brockton Bay. The city is inredb incredibly big. Yesterday my dad took me to the Forsberg Gallery, which is twenty-six stories tall. There was a lot of boring art, some nice art, and they had a fling flying motorcycle made by a tinker somewhere. We also went to the roof. The view was great, but it got really cold up there, and I really missed my big swarm scarf. We also saw Parian, who is a girl that can make stuffed anmal animals walk around and makes clothes.

I hope you are all right. It was very scary seeing all those tubes and stits stitches when you were in the hospital. Are the people nice in your new home?

My broken arm and leg are a bother, because I cannot try on new clothes or walk very far. Stairs are difficult right now, but dad has put a bed down-stairs so it is not a really big problem.

We also watched lots of movies, my favorite was the star trek movie where they went back in time to find wales whales.

I have to go now, we are going to talk to a teacher from my new school. I hope it will not be too bad.

Goodbye

~Sely

Paige looked at the letter, happy in the knowledge that the girl was safe now. She was overly familiar, calling her by her first name, but she could live with that. Better her than her minister of psychiatry.

However, someone had taken the girl’s scarf. An idea started brewing in her mind. She could remedy that.

A few minutes into the new task she had set for herself, someone knocked on the door again, before opening it. The same maid as previously, it seemed that her dinner had been prepared.

*** Blauwster ***

Blauwster relaxed in his recliner, and surveyed his kingdom, so to speak. He had done quite well for himself since Leviathan’s attack. Sure, some people would call what he did a protection racket, but was that really that bad if you were legitimately protecting them from all who would harm them? Including the police and the military?

He opened up his laptop, and checked his e-mail. Still no reply. Worried, he opened up an American news-website, and searched for Wyoming.

The article he found was a fluff piece, not actually telling anything interesting, except that the problem was over now.

He checked a different website, one more specialized in cape news, and saw what he had feared the last few days. His friend was simply far too reckless. The article stated he had died, as well as his civilian identity, a local woodsman, a man of simple means. It did not, however, state how he died, except that it was in the fighting at the end. That woman maybe? Hallucca? Or someone else? His foreign friend Horn had been a courageous man, an unstoppable mind in an unstoppable body. He deserved to be avenged.

*** ??? ***

She could see the transport through her binoculars, two heavily armed men sitting in front, quite possibly more guards in the back. With any luck, not too many of them parahuman. She gazed at the man in the passenger seat, and closed her eyes.

She could see the interior of the car, cigarette butts lying on the ground, as well as a plethora of fatty snacks. She was looking at her phone, with rather… creative… pornography playing. The man sitting next to her said something, but she couldn’t understand it. A limit. She looked at him, and behind him, the window, behind that, fields of grassland, cows dotted around. She replied, and while waiting for the other participant in the conversation, she blinked.

She was standing in the middle of a green field, and her body hadn’t expected that, she rubbed her eyes, sure that this was some sort of illusion.

She stood on the mountainside overlooking the road through a pair of binoculars, and looked at the driver of the transport

She was looking around, talking into a microphone, panicking, trying to stay on the round in all the madness, she looked around, looking for the assailant. She blinked.

She was standing in a field, behind her, she could see the car swerving around driverless, she couldn’t believe her eyes, and rubbed at them.

She was standing on the mountain-side, looking at a transport on its side. Out of the back climbed a woman in a costume, muscles and scars visible below the armour plates. She closed her eyes.

She was looking around, searching for the attacker. The drivers had gone silent, and the car had crashed. A car just barely evaded them, tooting his horn. Was that the assailant? She looked at the back of the car to spot gunmen, when she blinked

She was in the back of the car, the driver panicking about the heavily armoured cape who had just appeared behind him. She shouted, yelled, and the man lost control. She blinked.

She was standing on the mountainside. And looked through her binoculars, at no-one in particular, just an empty spot behind the transport. She closed her eyes.

She was standing behind the transport, Some cash, some gold, and the thing she was here for. The painting, a Rembrandt. Quickly, she grabbed it in pristine condition, and shoved some other precious goods in her pockets, no reason to let it go to waste.

As the armoured person was running towards the car, she readied her binoculars again, and looked at the mountainside, specifically, at her motorcycle. She closed her eyes.

She laughed. Another successful heist. No-one had gotten hurt, minimal damage to the infrastructure, and another of the ancient masters for her collection.

Revving the engine, she wondered where she would go next. Some place with a nice beach to relax. Brockton Bay perhaps? After all, the world was her oyster, and no-one would ever catch her.

*** Assault ***

“So how was it?” Puppy asked, her beautiful puppy eyes staring into his.

“Fun, strangely enough. Turns out, all the rumours about Mouse Protector are true! Also, Skip is the best ten-year-old ever!”

“Good to hear, and the boss?”

“He’s staying a few days, we might be getting a new ward if talks with her parents go well.”

“I hope it’s not going to be another teenage boy? Or at least one that’s a little more subtle than Kid Win and Triumph?”

Assault had to chuckle at that, try as they might, hiding their eyes behind helmets and visors as they might, both of them were quite obviously rather intrigued by puppy’s body. Not that he could blame them, her ass looked amazing, especially in costume.

She stood up, a slightly more serious look in her eyes.

“So, speaking about wards, have you thought about my proposal, getting you a replacement puppy?”

Ethan thought about it. At first, he’d dismissed it, thought it wouldn’t be possible. But if it was, if they managed to make it work. He’d read the files, and she probably deserved a second chance. Having just done Colin a favour, and knowing how the protective the man was of his own daughter.

“I guess we can try. It might just work, It’ll be hard work though, probably harder than just getting a baby. You sure you don’t want to do that instead?”

His puppy laughed at him. “What, and let you patrol on your own while I’m stuck changing diapers? I didn’t think so!”


	26. Chapter 26

Gadget 5.1

“Colin, what’s wrong?” the synthesized voice called out.

Colin looked up at the screen in frustration. He had expected this entire endeavour to be, if not simple, at least not this ridiculously complicated. On his desk, and on the screens not occupied by Dragon’s face, were scientific articles, books, conference proceedings and other such things.

“It’s this entire field of study… Powers have been around since I was a kid and they still don’t know anything. Half the papers contradict each other, and patterns are broken more often then they’re actually followed.”

“Parahuman studies huh? I know how frustrating that can be, there just don’t seem to be that many answers, but maybe I can help, what are you looking for.” Dragon answered him, her voice soft and calming, as allways.

He wasn’t quite sure what to do. Wasn’t even sure if he was actually looking for something, and even then, the problem was more personal, not work-related. He probably shouldn’t even be doing this on company time, but all his hours of were now occupied, and he’d done enough overtime to make up for a small indiscretion.

“It’s… The new ward, her story about Sely rescuing her. It just doesn’t quite make sense. How did she get past the guards, how did she know the distraction was coming. I… I don’t want to pressure Sely about it, she’s gone through enough for now, but…” He stopped talking. This was not how he wanted people to see him. He was Armsmaster, leader of Protectorate ENE, one of the greatest tinkers around, a leader, a hero. Not a guy filled with insecurities about taking care of his daughter.

“But you’re afraid that she triggered during the chaos, and is too afraid of herself to tell anyone.” Dragon answered, completing the sentence for him.

“That’s the gist of it, yes. So, I decided to do some more research about trigger events, and it just doesn’t make any sense. For example, we know that children of parahumans generally have powers similar to their parents, the most obvious examples being the Pelham’s. But we also know that there is some relation between the nature of the trigger event and the power. Physical events giving more physical powers, for example.”

“Hmm, yes, I see where you’re going with this. On one hand, we would expect her to be a tinker, given that you are one. On the other hand, we would expect her to be something else, since it was a specific event, or maybe a period of a few days, that led to it, rather than something extended, which seems to generally be the case with tinkers.”

“Exactly, every time something fits, I find something else that doesn’t. Take the new girl, everything about her circumstances says shaker, but when you look at her power it could just as well be classified as blaster or striker. There are so many powers that could fall into a plethora of categories that It’s just ridiculous that they seem to use them in some of this research. I understand how mind control and minion summoning are similair in the field, but saying the trigger events should therefore also be similair seems ridiculous to me.”

Dragon nodded, and seemed to be thinking about something.

“Well, I don’t really see a solution right now, given the available literature. Maybe you should just wait. She’ll probably be more comfortable around you in a few weeks, I’m sure that, if she has powers, she’ll tell you when the time is right. Remember, she’s been through a lot lately, and at that age, even just changing schools can be a huge deal. When did she start at Arcadia?”

“I… I guess I can drop the topic for now, It’s just frustrating, not being able to do anything. They started this morning, it took a few days to gather enough decoys to mask Emma’s identity.”

“Well, let’s hope this school survives longer than the last one.” Dragon quipped, the artificial face distorting into something that was slightly too much like an emoticon. The advantages of a fake face.

*** Gadget ***

Brockton bay was big, really big. Much bigger than Westlake. It pained me to admit it, but, Westlake wasn’t really a city in comparison to this.

And with big cities, came big schools. Even though Brockton Bay had more than one high school, Arcadia was still bigger than Westlake High.

That meant, of course, that I had to go exploring. And sure, I was technically missing my first class, but if anyone objected I could just say that I got lost.

Not that I had gotten lost, I totally knew where I was. I was just down the hallway from the bathrooms.

Except, of course, that according to this map they’d given me, every floor had three different sets of bathrooms. Given that I was probably on the third floor, which meant that I was about…

Where the hell was I…

The hallways were empty, and all I could see was a row of lockers, class-rooms, computer labs, what was either a music room or a torture chamber, and these damn bathrooms.

As had been explained at the meeting dad brought me to, the school lay-out was very simple. Every room had four numbers. One of them was the floor, another one was the wing of the building, and then there were two that denoted the specific room.

So that probably meant that, if you had to go to a room starting with a three, you went up three sets of stairs.

But now every room had a four in front. Did that mean I was in the fourth wing? If room one was on the ground floor, this should’ve been three.

Unless they started numbering at a thousand, but that wouldn’t make any sense.

So, did I go downstairs again? The elevator was, probably, a bit back. If I remembered right. I turned around, one arm in a sling, the other holding a crutch. It was tricky, but I’d gotten the hang of it over the last few days. Most of the day had been filled by watching movies with dad, but we’d also explored the city a bit. The fact that I wasn’t supposed to enter certain gang-controlled areas was… disconcerting, but I could understand it, given the amount of supervillains in town. Apparently, Lung was even more dangerous than Hallucca had been, and then there was the Neo-Nazi gang in town.

After some struggles with the elevator, I’d arrived on what I was pretty sure was supposed to be the third floor. Now I only had to explore the entire floor to figure out where my class was.

About five minutes in, I bumped into someone else, another girl with a school map in her hands.

“Hey, you looking for 3423 as well?” She asked.

I looked at my schedule, English was first. “No, 3148 I think.”

I looked her over, she was about Emma’s height, same hair colour, blonde as well. Weird, so many people starting on the same day in the middle of the year.

“I think 3148 is that way,” she said, pointing to the hallway she came from. “You all right in getting there?”

“Yeah sure, I can make it” I replied, hopping forward in the direction she’d pointed in. “See ya later.”

One corner later, I’d found the classroom, only half an hour late. I wondered for a second why Emma was in a different class, she’d been in the same year as I was, and we’d had almost all of our classes together in Westlake. Maybe it was something to do with her becoming a ward, getting special superhero classes.

I knocked on the door, and after a few seconds, the teacher opened the door. A woman, about thirty years old. Brown hair, nice clothes, glasses.

“I’m… um… I got lost, I’m Sely.” I said, waving with my working hand, which was holding the crutch, and the papers I’d been given.

She took a look at me, and answered. “Yes, well, everyone else already got started on the group exercise so…” She turned to the class, and raised her voice. “Anyone mind having the new girl join their group?”

At that, I heard quite a few different voices exclaim that they wanted me in their group. I guessed school here wouldn’t be too bad.

*** Battery ***

 

Jessica looked over her desk, filled with letters, forms, and other such documents. Correspondence with the district attorney, a notice from the attorney general, documents from CPS and the youth guard. It had been difficult, getting all this together, but her reputation had bought her a certain amount of good will from the local bureaucrats. In addition to that, the way the top brass had forced Ethan into her life meant that she had a certain amount of leeway there too. Even he had finally agreed with her plan.

It was silly, she knew. She was already a hero, had saved countless people, fought the endbringers on multiple occasions. But still, every time she thought about it, there was that niggling feeling at the back of her mind. you’re a fake. It said. She knew, deep down, that everything special about her had come from a bottle. One on which she still needed to finish her payment.

Collecting the odds and ends, she got ready for the last step. The one person, two if you counted Piggot, that she hadn’t discussed her plan with. Documents in hand, she went for Armsmaster’s lab.

When she entered through the door, she saw that he was chatting with Dragon about a project, she wasn’t quite sure what, tinker-talk was generally beyond her.

“Working hard, or hardly working?” She asked, before realizing how incredibly cliche that line must have been. It was annoying, hanging out with Ethan when she just couldn’t keep up with the puns.

Armsmaster looked at her with… was that a small twinge of guilt on his face? Had he actually been slacking of? Dragon just smiled, and said “Good afternoon Battery.”

At that, Armsmaster nodded in acknowledgement of her presence. “Is there anything you wanted to ask?”

“Yes, there is, do you have a moment?”

“… Sure.”

“Mind if I sit in?” Dragon interjected. Of course, given her information-gathering prowess, she probably already knew what she wanted to ask.

When Jessica went to put the papers on Armsmaster’s desk, she noticed a picture frame there, a recent addition. It was Armsmaster, Colin, seeing as he was dressed in his civilian clothes, with his arm around a girl with one arm in a sling and a crutch, standing on top of the Forsberg gallery, if she recognized the view correctly. Both of them were smiling, and it wasn’t the kind of fake smile you usually saw on pictures.

“Sure, no problem Dragon. Now, Armsmaster, you know that girl living in the north end of town? Hellhound?”

*** Gadget ***

I had made it through the two-hour (one and a half for me) English class, and even found some people who shared my next class. Jonas, Blake and May escorted me to our next class, making sure I didn’t get lost again.

“So, you’re one of the decoys huh?” May asked. She was Japanese American, or Chinese American, or something like that. Small, short black hair.

“… Decoy?”

“Yeah, it’s like, all the wards go here, so whenever there’s a new ward, they just bump like twenty similar people up the waiting list and enroll them all at once to hide the new hero’s identity.” May explained.

Well, that explained the other transfers I saw.

“Not sure I ever was on a waiting list, I just moved to the bay a week ago.” I replied.

“So where are you from?” Blake asked. Blake could be described in two words. He was black, and he was fat, the combination of the 50-cent style haircut and man-boobs wasn’t very impressive. Heck, his assets were bigger than mine, not that I had all that much of anything, at least not in comparison to people like Emma.

“Westlake.”

“Isn’t that the place that was in the news?” Jonas asked.

“Yup” I answered, which started a cannonade of questions.

“Was it scary”

“yup”

“Did you meet the crazy super-villain that took over the town?”

“Yup”

“Was she scary?”

“Nope”

“Wait… Nope?”

“Yup”

“How was she not scary?”

“She was nice, also crazy.”

“She wasn’t scary because she was crazy?”

“Yup”

“Did you see any heroes”

“Yup”

“Did you see Myrddin?”

“Nope”

“Did you know he thinks he’s a wizard?”

“Yup, cause he is.”

“No he’s not, he’s just a parahuman.”

And that was the point where the discussion started deteriorating. Some things remained constant no matter where you were.

“Yes he is, he has magic wizard powers.”

“Power’s aren’t magic!”

“What about magnet powers?”

“So you think tinkers are magic?”

“So you think prophecies aren’t magic?

And so on and so on.

Still, we made it to class on time somehow.

The second class of the day, the class before lunch, was World Issues, a class where we would discuss the fact that the world had issues. I wasn’t quite sure why, it sounded like that fact was obvious enough to all observers, but whatever. This time, instead of a group project, there was a lecture on the dangers of racism, sexism, and a whole lot of other stuff like that. Like not treating stupid people as if they were stupid, stuff like that. It was all rather boring, and I spend most of the class drawing stuff, stuff being people in class, people I’d met, and some sketches for awesome super-thievery outfits, until one of the students, a brown-haired kid apparently called Chris, asked a question about discrimination against parahumans. Capes. That got people talking, instead of listening to the teacher.

Opinions ranged far and wide. One girl said that, since parahumans were obviously superior, they couldn’t technically be discriminated against. When the teacher brought up certain pieces of complicated-sounding legislation, the discussion went on about that. If there were laws against capes doing some things, how would they proof you were a cape. The teacher said that there was a thingy in the brain that everyone with powers had. Did that mean I could hide my powers if I made something that foiled brain scanners? I started thinking of ideas on how to scan brains and how to stop the brain-scanners, making short sketches for how they would look, when I got interrupted.

“Sely, you’ve had some close encounters with parahumans, what do you think, should there be laws specifically for them, either for or against?”

At that, the rest of the students looked at me, noting the cast around my leg, as well as my broken arm. How had the teacher even known? I remembered the article, the one about me being kidnapped, that would’ve done it, quite easy to piece things together knowing I was from Westlake.

“It’s, well, all of them are different, and a lot of them are kinda crazy, so… I guess, like, the law is supposed to the same for everyone, because everyone is the same, but capes aren’t the same as other people, and none of them have the same power, so… I guess it’s that you’d need a separate law for every cape, so maybe it’s better to just make it up as you go along? Because, like, if someone has everything they think become real, then they wouldn’t be allowed to think stuff?”

I really wasn’t quite sure what my point had been there, I’d just… gotten distracted about halfway through or something.

Luckily, class ended before there was any time for follow-up questions. Which meant lunch, which meant food, and hopefully being able to talk to Emma again. I wondered what she was thinking, knowing that there’d been two dozen decays just to keep her identity secret.

*** Argenta ***

Being Emma Smith was suffering.

First, two hours of computer classes where she had to pretend she wasn’t the new ward everyone was talking about, and was instead a decoy.

Then, two hours of math class, she didn’t need to say more.

Then, lunch. Which would’ve been okay, if she could just go sit with Sely. Except Armsmaster had advised her that it would be smarter if it wasn’t immediately obvious to everyone that they knew each other, seeing as the whole Westlake thing could be kind of a giveaway.

Thus, Emma was all on her own, recognizing only two people in the entire building. One of them, Sely, was sitting on the other side of the cafeteria with some people she’d met, while the other, Rory, who was in his last year, pretended not to know her as well, given that that would be suspicious.

Rory of course, was better known as Triumph, and was the team leader. They’d met during power testing, He was cool, awesome, amazing, confident, attractive, and three years older than her. That last part was the problem.

Two more classes after this. It sucked, having to sit through classes. The director, Pi-Go or something, had informed them about some sort of co-op program that would allow her to spend the second half of the school-day as a ward, but her father had insisted on proper education. Afterwards, her mom had told Emma and the director she’d talk about it with father, but for now, she had to go to all the classes, all day long.

Then, when she was done, she’d meet with branding, and they’d get started on her costume. Which would be amazing, because Armsmaster had pulled some strings and gotten a large block of some sort of tinker-made silver alloy, which they would try to change into her outfit. Sure, technically speaking, it was a very effective choice because of its high conductivity helping her with her power, but it was also incredibly glamorous.

If only she could gush about it to someone. Having amazing stuff wasn’t any fun when you couldn’t actually tell anyone about it.

So, the entire lunch was instead spend on trying to figure out if Arcadia had a cheer-leading team, and figuring out how to sign up for that.

***

Emma, no, Argenta, moved the block of metal up and down. It was easy, even easier than the alloy she’d taken from Hallucca. The problem was precision. She could bend it into rough shapes, but she couldn’t exactly create lightweight armor from it, that was way too difficult, but Leah had said they’d get someone else to forge it into its proper shape.For now, they were discussing how it should look. Eventually, when Leah had seen a picture of her spear, they’d decided on something medieval, like a knight. Maybe her parents wouldn’t be perfectly happy with such an un-ladylike outfit, but Emma was feeling just a teeny bit rebellious, and hoped she could get away with it. The helmet was smooth, with a heart-shape opening in the front, from her eyes to her chin. It would have a variable visor that would usually just cover the eyes, but could also turn into a complete plate, that would help against smoke and dust, or gas attacks. The armour design was less defined, they had decided on making it spacious in front, to allow for growth, given how endowed Emma’s mother was, but that was pretty much all they had for the body and arms.

The best part was around the legs, where she’d have a combination of pants and skirt. On first glance, the skirt would seem almost dress-like, but they would actually be individual strips of metal covered in an insulator, that she would be able to wrap around people. Another thing they’d tested yesterday.

Generally speaking, her electricity would connect to anything conductive nearby, but a small layer of insulator around the metal allowed her control without danger to the surrounding materials. In the same vein, the incredible conductivity of the silver alloy meant she wouldn’t automatically zap everyone around her when using her power.

Being able to arrest people with her skirt was useful, because she wasn’t actually allowed to zap anyone until she’d completed several courses on safety and anatomy and electricity and stuff. It sounded complicated, but she could understand it, given what she’d done…

…

“Hey sweety, is something wrong?” Leah asked.

“I… nothing, just…”

“C’mon then, let’s get something to drink after all our hard work.”

Leah took her hand, and brought her to the break room. Sitting down on the couch, Emma accepted the hot choco she was offered, trying desperately not to let it spill.

After about three minutes, someone else entered the room, a girl in costume, even younger than her.

“Good afternoon Vista, have you met Argenta yet?”

The girl looked at her, her eyes hovering at about chest-level, her face looked conflicted.

“Hi Argenta, nice to meet you.” She said, holding out a hand.

“I… Hi.” Emma replied, not really sure what else to say.

Eventually, Vista just decided to sit down next to her.

“So, you two draw up anything good yet?” Vista asked, trying to cheer her up.

“I… A little bit. Do, do you want to see?” Emma replied.

“Sure, show me what you got! Maybe I can help!”

“Well. Uhm, here’s the helmet, and this part is going to be glass, and then I can use this part here with my power for this part and well”

Watching the two wards made a smile appear upon Leah's face. Adorable as she was, Vista always knew what to say to cheer people up.


	27. Chapter 27

Gadget 5.2

Stupid stupid stupid little Sely. I had been so utterly stupid.

It had taken me two entire days of wandering about to actually figure this thing out.

Sure, getting on the roof with one working leg and half an arm would be difficult to almost everyone. But I wasn’t just anyone, was I now? I had something other people didn’t, I had magic tinker powers.

I didn’t need to figure out some sneaky path to the PA room that I could take even while wounded. I just needed to find a way to hijack the signal.

In the same vein, there was probably some sort of tinker-tech way to fill the coffee machines with laxatives, or maybe glitter.

I just had to find myself some time and materials. Once I had those, I just needed to get close to one of the wires involved in the PA system. It was too much to ask for it to be wireless. Arcadia had some sort of fancy schmancy faraday cage stopping electromagnetic waves.

I looked around, seeing what I could use. Right now I was lying on the couch in front of the TV in dad’s, or, I guess, mine as well now, home. Some show about earth Aleph was on, but I wasn’t really paying attention to it. The couch was amazing, big, wide and fluffy, perfect for lazily watching movies. The TV itself was a widescreen plasma thingy, with about a dozen speakers spread throughout the room. Beneath it was a cable-box, a barely used games console, and a media-server. I’d tried my hand at the console for a bit, but not only was playing with one hand nearly impossible; the few games dad had were really difficult. I just wanted to go racing, not calculate what tires I needed in what kind of weather.

Behind the couch was a wall filled with books and magazines. Some fiction, but mostly sciency stuff, both the really complicated stuff from experiments, as well as some easier. The scientific texts were really interesting, but I didn’t understand half the words in them, which made them difficult to read.

The kitchen would be more promising, but it was hard to focus around the coffee machine, which was amazing. Mostly because it also made hot chocolate, and because it was voice-controlled. You could just say what you wanted and it would make it for you, marshmallow included. It was also incredibly efficient, able to make two different drinks at once.

Problem was, whatever I took, dad would probably notice it was gone. I couldn’t rely on him being as dense as mom or Henry. My stash of stuff in Westlake had been destroyed, and I wouldn’t have been able to bring it along anyway. Acquiring new stuff in the same way was… problematic, given the fact that I hobbled instead of walked for now.

How much would I need anyway? Not that much for something to intercept and reprogram the Announcement system. Some wiring and a small processor with a bit of memory would be more effective. I could probably manage to fit in a slot for digital storage, so that I could use it multiple times with a different message.

So I’d need some money. Problem was, I hadn’t actually stored any money in my GadgetSpace, given that it would disappear when I needed it.

But, I had O’Neill’s wallet, which, if I remembered correctly, had some cash in it. That would have to do then.

I grabbed my new phone, another present from dad, and typed out a message.

*** Triumph ***

Triumph took a sideways glance at his boss, not sure what this was all about. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done patrols with a protectorate member before, but most of those had been at the start of his tenure as a ward. Ever since he’d become team leader last month, he had been the senior partner on almost all of his patrols.

Right now, they were walking through the streets near the boardwalk, not in any way a dangerous area that necessitated there being two of them. It was strange.

“So, how are you finding leadership?” Armsmaster asked.

Ah, so that was what this was about. The patrol was merely an excuse for a more informal conversation.

The question, however, made him think. He’d only had a month of leadership behind him, and not much had happened in the meantime. They’d been in a single real right, when the merchants of all people had staged an escape attempt. There’d been just three of them, him, Vista and Aegis, but they’d done pretty well, or so he thought. Only one of the merchants, Mush, had escaped, and that only because they’d been ordered away from the area. One of Squealer’s vehicles had taken heavy damage, and had been starting to burn, Piggot had made the call for them to move away from the area, fearing a large explosion.

“It’s… more frustrating than I thought.” He answered. “The paperwork, the regulations, I’d never really realized how much of that went into the entire operation.”

Armsmaster nodded at that. “Trust me, It’s even worse when you’re a Tinker, back when I started out, I needed to file a report for just about every nut and bolt I used. That’s why these days, there’s a discretionary budget for costuming and such.”

A personal anecdote, or at least something resembling, from Armsmaster? Today seemed to be a special day.

“It’s also… I find it hard to switch between hanging out with my friends and being their leader, you know. It’s hard to hang out with my peers when I know they’ll have to do as I say the moment we put on our costume.”

They walked on together, Armsmaster thinking about what he had said.

“You should try keeping in contact with others, people who aren’t capes, or PRT. That will make it easier to divorce your job and your friends. And it becomes rather difficult to do such things later in your career, since most everyone you meet will either be a cape or PRT personnel.”

“I… I can kind of get that. It’s… I meet most people at school, and I can’t even play sports anymore. If all I did was work…”

“It’s the paradox of being a hero. The more you try to protect people, the more separate from them you become. If you fully devote your life to protecting the things that you love, you might one day find out that they don’t love you back, because they don’t actually know you.”

Strange, to see Armsmaster so philosophical. Triumph wondered why, maybe he should ask Assault what happened, or Argenta.

Armsmaster continued: “So, if someone tries to tell you to let go of the things you love the better to protect them, don’t.”

He thought about that for a while. It was an interesting perspective, especially in how it clashed with the way heroes acted, at least on TV. He’d long since understood that actors and screenwriters didn’t really understand how being a cape worked. On TV, someone figuring out your civilian identity was a far more real problem. Sure, you wouldn’t want anyone to know who you were, but people generally didn’t go searching in real life, unless it was personal. A helping of professionalism worked wonders against that, the entire hero/villain thing was semi-preposterous every now and then, and the more agreeable villains were perfectly okay with getting arrested as part of the job hazards. It didn’t work with the more serious villains, but Piggot tried to make sure that the wards were focused on the lesser threats. Your Uber and 1337’s.

So, when capey mc-capeface broke up with her girlfriend to protect her from harm, well, then that was really a problem of incompetence on the hero’s part wasn’t it? Self-sacrifice to help others might be an important part of being a hero, but such things didn’t actually help anyone. A villain determined enough to figure out your identity and your girlfriend would also be determined enough to figure out that you broke up with her to protect her, and that killing her would still hurt. Plus, to a real hero, the relationship shouldn’t even matter, everyone should be protected.

He looked over at his boss again, who was looking at something in his visor. It was subtle, but you could see by the way he didn’t actually seem to be looking at anything in particular, even though his head was slightly moving. Armsmaster suddenly grabbed his phone, and held it up to him.

“So, Triumph, could you translate this for me?”

He looked at the screen, and read the message.

“going 2 mall 4 a bit, b @6 k?”

 

*** Gadget ***

“Of course, there’s some money in the key bowl that you can use, have fun and be home in time for dinner.”

That was… nice. It would mean I wouldn’t need to pay with disappearing money. I checked the bowl of keys, car, motorcycle, house door, some stuff I didn’t really recognize, and below all that, a small wallet. Checking the cash, I figured out what dad called “some money”.

Roughly seven-hundred bucks.

I knew that dad wasn’t poor. I wasn’t quite sure what his job entailed, but from the furniture and everything it obviously paid well enough. The house itself was halfway between an apartment and a house, two floors, with the top floor having a balcony that overlooked the living room. It was located on the outer edge of a larger complex. The front door went to the street outside, but the backdoor went to a large indoor garden-type thing, shared by several houses. From there, you could take the elevator up to other apartments, seeing as the building was six floors high. All of it was well-kept, and to get to the indoor area you’d need to either live on the lower floor, where you could just take the back door, or you had to pass a security guard at a desk.

So, all in all, not a cheap affair. That didn’t mean I’d expected him to just have 700 bucks lying around. Although, given the type of stuff he seemed to spend it on, it did seem that it was about what he’d need for a shopping trip.

The mall, a local shopping centre with lots of small stores with way too expensive coffee, was just two streets over, a distance I could actually walk. So, I set out, cash in hand, keys in pocket dimension.

*** Argenta ***

“I’m still not sure about that outfit, I mean, it’s a bit too, colourful? I guess? It makes me look like a little kid. I’m in middle school.” Missy said.

Missy, or Vista, was amazing. She was smart, she was strong, she was incredibly confident. She just didn’t have a lick of fashion sense. Emma blamed it on hanging out with boys four years older than her all the time. Aegis was nice, and Triumph was, well, it was improper to think about that kind of stuff, but they were also dudes. They farted, they burped, and they fought crime.

“Relax, it’s fine, it brings out your natural charm. Trust me, there’s more than one way to make guys like you. You have to play to your strengths instead of spending all your time on overcoming your weaknesses."

Emma took another sip of her coffee, or, at least, her caffeinated drink from a coffee store. It contained very little coffee, and a very large amount of other things.

Vista still seemed down, and Emma could sympathize with the problem. She hadn’t met the other girl yet, but from the fact that she was a full-blown celebrity, Emma could understand that Missy felt like she couldn’t possibly beat her in the fight for Gallant.

It was a bit icky, Gallant was quite a few years older than Missy, but it was about the principle of the thing, not the specifics. The girl had cheered her up, so now it was her turn to be cheered up in return. Shopping usually did the trick, at least for Emma.

“So, how’s training coming along?” Vista asked.

“It’s… well… It hurts to sit right now” Emma replied, thinking back to the hand-to-hand lessons she’d followed. Most of the first lesson had involved being thrown on the mat time and time again, all the while trying to keep a lid on her power. That was more difficult than she’d expected. It seemed like her power almost instantly reacted the moment something surprised her. She could shake hands all right, but once someone approached her from behind and put a hand on her shoulder, she’d have to try very hard not to zap him or her.

“Well, you’ll be happy to hear there won’t be too many of them.” Vista replied, an emphatic look on her face.

“Why not? Isn’t knowing how to fight important?”

“Well, sure, but close quarters? Hand to hand? Generally speaking, if it comes to that, it’s up to powers, not martial arts. If someone isn’t lightning-proof, he’s gonna get zapped, whether he’s a black belt or not. Much the same way, a sleeper hold doesn’t really work on someone like Hookwolf. It’s more important to get a feel for where someone is going to strike, than to actually train specific techniques.”

That was why Emma liked Vista, she just knew everything when it came to being a hero.

“I guess that makes sense.”

She looked around the plaza, small boutiques and large chain stores littering the area. She still hadn’t gotten used to the contrast, how, in one area, the city was thriving, money from the high-tech industry invigorating the area, and then, two streets over, you’d find masses of homeless, gangsters, junks.

Then, something caught her attention, a girl walking on crutches, she recognized Sely. Holding up one arm, she waved at her, and called her over.

Sely slowly hopped over, a shopping bag attached to her crutch.

“Sup Ems?”

“We’re just having a drink, do you want to join us?”

Sely grabbed her phone from her pocket, a manoeuvre far more complicated that it sounded, given her physical state.

“Sure, I got about an hour or so to waste.”

As she sat down, Emma realized that it would be rather hard for her to go get some coffee in her state. And that she hadn’t actually introduced her two friends to each other.

“Missy, this is Sely, Sely, this is Missy.”

“Hiya” Sely said, holding a hand out.

“Hi” Missy replied, shaking the hand.

“I will go get you something, chocolate milk right?” Emma said

Sely nodded, and slumped down in her chair, obviously tired from hopping around everywhere. Leaving the two girls behind, she entered the store to get Sely’s drink. The line had grown since she’d gotten her coffee, and it looked like she was in for a bit of a wait.

It was only in the line that she realized what she’d just done. Sely knew she was a ward, did that mean that she could now figure out who Missy was? This secret identity stuff was hard.

Then, of course, there was the fact that Sely probably had powers of some sort. The man at the door had been sleeping when she answered, to say nothing about the magically appearing wrench and wallet. She hadn’t said anything about that to anyone, because secret identities were important, everyone knew that. Plus, Armsmaster had probably already known, having powers were the sort of thing you told your parents about.

Why the man had asked her not to tell Sely he was Armsmaster, she couldn’t quite understand.

Eventually, she had the drink for Sely, and a new set of drinks for her and Missy as well, it had been a long line.

What she saw when she got back, was not what she’d expected. Sely and Missy were intently looking at a piece of paper, on which Sely had drawn something with a pen.

On closer inspection, it turned out that Sely had been drawing miniature versions of the local capes, and from what she’d read about him, chibi-Lung had no right to be that damn cute, with his cuddly little tail.

“Drinks are here” She said, and the other girls happily started drinking, and Emma relaxed a little. Things had been getting better the last two weeks. No power outages, no crazy drugs, no Horn. It had helped that Sely moved here at the same time, and that there was another girl on the wards.

“So you guys see that VR thing in the tech store?” Sely asked, breaking the silence with a completely different topic

“Not me, you Missy?”

“Heard about it from a friend, but haven’t seen it yet.”

Hearing that, Sely saw it as an excuse to start motormouthing: “It’s a new thing that’s, like, inspired by tinker stuff but not actually tinker stuff so it doesn’t actually need cape maintenance and it’s really cool I heard they’re doing some really cool stuff like it’s not only games but there’s a thing where you walk on the moon, or like through a museum so you can just go to the Louvre so it’s basically a teleporter except it doesn’t have the problem that it has in Star-Trek where it completely destroys your body and makes a clone or something because you’re not actually going somewhere and I wonder if you could make like a robot that then did the stuff you did in VR but instead of VR it was just a camera on top of the robot so you could go different places really easy and then they could give the robot a jetpack and you could fly and.” Sely stopped, just long enough to catch her breath in one big gulp “they could give it a grappling hook that could totally work because normally like I saw on TV that most grappling hooks don’t work because you can’t just shoot them into the wall because the wall isn’t strong enough to pull you up but then instead you put a forcefield or something in it to make the wall stronger so it can carry you and you could climb up buildings in your robot-building and basically be a cape by being a robot and you’d never have to go outside and then instead of soldiers you’d have” She gasped again “Massive Nerds like Percy and instead of bootcamp they just play videogames all day but instead of videogames it’s just walking around in a different place and I bet if they put in like a thing to hijack the signal you could take over the enemy robots and then like the entire battle would be trying not to have your robots stolen, and then to stop that they could put in a thing that looks at how fast the robot is going and if it goes slow because it is hacked then it explodes like in that movie with the buss that couldn’t slow down because then it would explode.”

So, obviously Sely had found something she thought was interesting. And, to be fair, Emma actually agreed that VR was interesting, imagine a recording taken by someone in a professional cheerleading squad, or pretending you were Alexandria on patrol.

“Ehhmm. I lost you at-“ Before Missy could finish her sentence, Emma had her mouth covered. Unlike most people, Sely remembered. If she thought someone wanted to hear the entire thing again, she would restate it verbatim.

This wasn’t Emma’s first Rodeo with her.

“Speed, right? That movie?” She interjected.

“Yup.” Sely answered. The trick was making her believe you’d listened to the entire thing, by replying to the last sentence. That way, she eventually stopped. Although, the last month and a half or so, she hadn’t really gushed about anything the way she’d done right now, even when her usual topics (downloading cars, animal rights, and school rules) had come up. Still, it was good to see that she was back in shape here.

What wasn’t nice to hear, was the alarms going off in a nearby store.

*** Rose ***

She stood in the middle of the store, a black scarf around the lower half of her face, the top covered by a black cowboy-hat. She wasn’t quite sure about the hat, but it was stylish.

Rather than some attention grabbing costume, she wore a suit, tailored to her body, covering a set of body armour. The effect was useful, allowing her to instantly change from master thief to business-lady.

Rose looked around, two guards lying on the ground, zapped by her tasers. It was easy, taking them down when they didn’t even know she existed.

Another guard came running, gun held in his hands. She blinked, and turned to strike him in the back of the head. That would buy her some time. She closed her eyes, and went back to her target. Experimental Virtual Reality gear, using synesthetic effects to enhance the images.

True enough, it wasn’t tinker-tech. It did, however, utilize a cape-made substance in its processing core, something which made it very much non-standard technology, very much almost one of a kind, and very much worth grabbing.

The people around her, they weren’t screaming, even though her entrance had tripped the alarm. Some of them had grabbed their phones, not to call the police, but rather to film her.

Cape groupies…

She grabbed the item, and targeted a point on the other side of the plaza, through the store windows. She appeared on top of a table, three girls staring at her in surprise.

Behind her, she could hear some idiot shouting. “Stop her”, or something like that.

“Sorry about the drinks” she said, noting the spills her appearance had caused. Then, before they could react, she closed her eyes. Just before she shifted, she felt something paw at her heels. One of the girls?

It didn’t matter, She excluded the thing touching her, it wouldn’t do to steal a ring or anything, at least not when she didn’t plan to.

She blinked again, appearing on top of a nearby building. She looked down at the girl. One of them looked scared, the youngest, the one that had grabbed at her leg, looked angry. The third one, her arm in a sling and a crutch standing by her chair, had a different expression on her face. Admiration?

*** Triumph ***

They were nearing the end of their patrol, Triumph had suggested a small detour through Merchant territory, but Armsmaster had denied the suggestion, saying that he had to be home in time for dinner.

Dinner, not nutrient-paste. That was new. That, together with the conversation from earlier, made him think that Sely was a good influence on his boss.

“So, before we arrive back at the PRT base, has Battery actually informed you about her plan?”

Plan? He couldn’t remember any plans from Battery, had he missed an important message?

“I guess not, at least, nothing springs to mind.

“As I suspected, she went to everyone except the people who actually matter in this. So, to begin with, do you remember the briefing on the girl that has been hanging out on the edges of town? The one with the dogs?”

“That was Hellhound right? I thought she wasn’t a problem?”

“Not much of one at least. It’s rather easy to manage her, Piggot’s instructed the local supermarket to store it’s dog food at the front of the store, and insurance covers most of the rest. Only real problem is when someone annoys her, usually some incident regarding her pets. Leave her alone, and she’s content to stay to herself.”

“So, what about her?”

“Battery, and by extension Assault, thinks she can turn her.”

“Turn her? didn’t she have a massive record? Including a murder charge?” He couldn’t quite believe it. The girl might not be a problem right now, but all the incidence reports stated that she acted aggressively. That she was dangerous.

“It’s… complicated, and I’m not entirely happy about how Battery went about it, but she cut a deal with the courts. As long as Hellhound accepts certain terms of probation, they will greatly reduce her sentence. Given the circumstances of the murder charge, I actually agree with that part, but for the rest…”

“What circumstances? And what’s the rest of the deal?”

“Apparently, the murder happened directly after the trigger event, when she had little control over her powers, and was against the person responsible for her gaining them. I… suspect you understand why I can sympathize.”

He did not, in fact, understand. Still, he nodded.

“As for the rest of the deal, she’ll join the wards, she’ll constantly have a tracking device on her, and Battery will keep her under close supervision, something which apparently includes adopting her.”

“Wait, so I’ll have a murderess on my team?”

What Battery wanted to do on her own time, that was her choice, but a known murderer? Could he really lead with someone like that on his team? It was hard enough to keep Aegis and Gallant on point, let alone some psycho-killer.

“You will nominally have Rachel on your team” Armsmaster replied, an unhappy expression crossing his lips. “In practice, however, she’ll spend most of her time patrolling with a Protectorate member, someone that can control her if she becomes overly violent. I do, however, expect you to make sure the team makes her feel welcome if everything works out. She’s a master that has spent the last few years away from most human contact, saying she might be lonely is drastically understating it.”

He could… accept that, maybe. But still, someone that violent that she’d kill someone?


	28. Chapter 28

Gadget 5.3

Emma looked at the woman sitting on the other side of the table. She estimated the woman to be about fifty years old, her short hair dyed an ugly blonde, with the roots clearly visible, and an absolutely horrible set of reading glasses hanging from a cord around her neck, right next to it was a pearl necklace, as well as a little cross on a chain. All resting on her large and formless bosom. The nameplate on her desk said “Mrs Brown, Youth Guard representative”.

On her desk, and pasted around the room, were pictures and bad drawings. Her children, probably. Going by the pictures, they were around the age of ten. Going by the drawings, they were about the age of five.

The woman started speaking, an unpleasant noise coming from someone that seemed to be quite used to shouting. It reminded her of someone who was very much not her mother, but rather the opposite. To borrow from her brothers vocabulary, this woman was the stick, not the carrot.

“Nice to meet you little miss. I’m Miranda Brown.” The woman said.

Emma held out her hand, and waited for the woman to shake it. She was wearing her undersuit, as well as her new helmet. The undersuit, so-called because it went under her armour. Most of it was standard issue, made out of a material that had some resistance to electricity. What was specialized about it, was the small wires crisscrossing beneath it, channelling her electricity to specific points on her body. Some of them went to her hands, others to her feet, but most of her power was directed towards the back of her torso. It had been based upon a failed design from Chris, from when he’d tried his hand at making a jetpack. He’d gotten frustrated halfway through, but the attachment points had been completed. 

When the first prototype of her armour had been done, she’d tried flying with it, or, rather, pushing it away from the ground. She couldn’t truly fly, as there needed to be a line of electricity between the things she was moving. If she just moved the armour up, without touching the ground, nothing would actually happen. It was like pushing something from both sides at once, nothing would happen. What did work, was then pushing her electricity down, which pushed herself up. It was hard, the ground wasn’t a great conductor, but it was easier when there was metal around. Although She’d been instructed to be very careful around cars and other such things, as the electricity might damage the more precise equipment.

According to Armsmaster, the new points in the suit would make her flight, or hovering, easyer. Something about how Chris’s situation meant that the stuff he designed generally had less to do with math or something, being more intuitive in use. Given the equations he had shown her on where to apply force for stable flight, she thought this was a better solution, floating around upside down had been… disorienting.

“I’m Argenta” she replied, still waiting. Eventually, the woman decided to shake her hand.

“I’m afraid I haven’t been given your name, could you please tell me?”

“What do you mean? I just told you, I’m Argenta.”

The woman sighed. “No, you’re not.” She said, a tired look on her face, as if she was explaining something that should have been obvious. “Your codename is Argenta. Your title as a Parahuman, is Argenta. I’m not here to talk with Argenta, I’m here to talk to the girl sitting in front of me.”

She wasn’t quite sure what to do now. Everyone knew that capes kept their identity a secret, you didn’t just tell anyone. Sure, you told your teammates and your parents, but not random people that wanted to talk to you.

And what was this nonsense of her not being Argenta. That was the entire point of a secret identity wasn’t it.

“Look miss, I’m part of the youth guard, I’m here to help you. In order to help you, I need to know what you need. Now, when I say that, you need to understand that I’m not here to help Argenta, I’m here to help you. The high-school girl behind that helmet. ”

“But… Everyone says I shouldn’t tell people my…”

“Look sweety, that’s about potential enemies, classmates, people from the press. You can trust me.”

“I… how do I know if I can trust you?”

The woman looked at her, was she getting impatient? “The youth guard is here to help you by definition. It’s the reason we were created, to make sure you have a life that is not just being a hero or a soldier.”

“So why do you need to know my name?”

“Because it’s symbolic, because it makes it clear that I’m talking to you, and not to Argenta.”

“…But I don’t want that.”

The woman sighed. “Can you explain to me why you don’t want that?”

“… I… I don’t want to be me… I want to be Argenta.”

The woman just didn’t understand. Emma was scared of things she didn’t know, Emma was always a stickler for the rules and a proper young lady. Argenta? Argenta was cool and badass and she could hover and she wore a suit of armor and she fought criminals. She was a hero, she didn’t have a voice squeakyer than a mouse, she didn’t lose her voice when Kenneth, or Jonas, or now Rory, talked to her.

“That’s exactly what I mean...” The woman said.

This woman was so… so utterly… She just didn’t know anything. She was like Emma had been, before… When she was still naïve, a ditz. She was better now, no longer miss proper, but strong and tough like Vista was.

She eyed the door. Could she? Would she? It was probably against the rules, but… She was Argenta now, Argenta was kind of a loose cannon.

“Trust me, you’re not the first child to lose herself in all this cape business. Everyone else here may be okay with that but-“

The door shut behind her before the Youth Guard woman could finish her sentence. She looked around, at the lock, and asked herself. ‘what would Sely do?’

A quick spark later, she walked back to the Ward’s common room, hearing someone banging on the door behind her.

*** Gadget ***

It had taken a few days, but I was finally done.

I’d re-dyed my hair, choosing to keep it long, but adding some red, blue, purple and black. In addition to that, I’d also found the time to work on my new project, a device that would analyse and hijack electrical signals being sent over a wire, partially inspired by my camera looper. It was more general-purpose, able to hijack different signals, but that came with a small problem. I needed to analyse the system first, by recording the signal. Then, once I had that info, I could revert that and make it send out what I actually wanted. In addition to that, I had a small receiver that I could keep with me, that would send the recorded data into a USB-stick, and could be used for remote-control as well.

Combine that with my power, and I could install my device, wait several hours, hijack the system, and have all evidence disappear before anyone came along to find it.

So, now to decide what to do with it. My first idea had been fart noises during the morning announcements. A bit uninspired, but you couldn’t go wrong with the classics. I could also just change what the messages said. The promise of Pizza during lunch while all there was was soup or something could work.

Or I could do something somewhat more exotic. Fake supervillain attack? Call in the wards publicly? Or just some really bad music? Old German political speeches?

Not knowing what to do with the invention, it’d probably be a better idea to just do something else first. I grabbed my laptop and started browsing, Dad would be home in about half an hour, after which we’d probably figure out what to do for dinner. I debated going to my room instead, but decided against it. I hadn’t really had time to decorate it, or buy much of anything, and it wasn’t that big anyway. Dad had said It used to be his laundry room. The house wasn’t really designed for multiple bedrooms.

PHO was still ablaze with rumours about everything and nothing. The recruitment of a new ward (I was pretty sure it was Emma, she’d just have to be set up with a costume and everything first.), the existence of a super-villain without powers, the idea that Velocity and Eidolon were secretly lovers, something about Armsmaster trying to arrest some girl called Spitfire, and finally what I had been looking for. The topic was about a super-villain going by the name of Rose. Or, rather, that was the name she had been given, because as a calling card, she often left behind a single rose petal. I couldn’t quite remember that from the day at the mall, but that did seem to be something she was taking the blame for.

The page just said her power was teleportation, something that was quite simple to figure out from seeing her. She just zipped in, tasered anyone guarding her target, and zipped out again with the loot. Right now, there were discussions on what she was using the Virtual Reality stuff for. Which reminded me that I still had to get the stuff to make that grappling hook I wanted.

I sat down on the couch and put my laptop away, the internet didn’t have any useful info on Rose. There was some sort of weird show about capes, focussing on a local Rogue by the name of Parian. Unlike what the name seemed to imply, Rogue’s weren’t actually criminals, nor could they go into stealth mode. Some of the people on TV seemed to like her, while others said that she should just become a hero if she loved the city.

That made absolutely no sense, unless the people saying that were all cops, it was just a big load of hypocrisy. And basically slavery too, except just for people with masks on.

I heard the front door open, and dad walked in. I looked up from my rather comfortable position lying on the couch to see him walk into the room. It must’ve rained since I got home from school, because his hair was wet. He didn’t look too happy.

“Eefnin dad.”

He nodded, but didn’t say anything in return. Instead, he sat down on the couch next to me.

“Sely… I just got a phone-call. Do you know who called me?”

Call dad… who would call dad? Who would call him that I would know about? Maybe that girl he sometimes talked about? The one with all the movie recommendations? What was her name again anyway? But then he wouldn’t be so stoic, he was usually more cheered up when that happened. He probably liked her or something, maybe I could help set them up. I’d need to figure out her name first of course. And, could be she was just as bad mom’s boyfriends had been.

“Sely???” He repeated. I had absolutely no idea who he meant.

“I dunno? Mom?”

“No Sely, the call wasn’t from your mother, although, if she wasn’t so busy recuperating, I would have a talk with her about it. The call was from one of your teachers.”

Why would my teachers be calling dad? I hadn’t even had any tests yet, no report cards at all.

“Do you know why Mrs brooks called me, Sely?”

“…No? I haven’t done anything in class.”

“Well, yes, that’s part of the problem Sely.” He looked at me, I wasn’t quite sure hwo he felt, but it seemed like he was trying to control himself. “She said you weren’t really paying a lot of attention in class, and that you haven’t turned in any of your homework yet.”

Oh… homework… They actually cared about that? Mom never did, or at least, not most of them time. Not unless some random guy thought it was important all of a sudden. Oh well, I’d only need to wait until she got a new guy.

Although… I was living with my dad now. If he cared about homework… He probably wasn’t going to change.

Shit.

He put a hand on my shoulder.

“It’s… Sely, I’m not angry with you. I know it’s been hard for you the last couple of weeks. I know I won’t be able to replace your mother, and that it can be really difficult to find friends in a new city, but…” He stopped for a second.

He was going to be so fucking angry… but… why was he putting in hand on my shoulder, what was he going to?

“I know you’re smart Sely, but that just isn’t always enough. You need to apply yourself, okay?”

What was he going to do? He’d been nice so far, but… I couldn’t help but notice he had a lot of muscles…

“Sely, look at me.”

I looked at him, and we locked eyes. He moved his arm towards my back, and pressed me forward against him in some sort of awkward hug.

This was new.

“I… I’m sorry, but…”

“Hush hush now sweety.” He patted my back a few times… He wasn’t very good at this, but I guess it was the idea that counted…

“I’ve already talked with her about it. You won’t have to turn in the stuff you missed, but you will have to be better from now on okay? And I can help you if you’re having a hard time.”

“But… It’s so boring, and annoying and…” ff’n homework… every day… This was going to suck so hard. It was stupid and…

“Look, Sely, I don’t like this either but it’s just something you’ll have to do. So from now on, every day, after dinner, you’re not doing anything else until your homework is done. Understood?”

This was… that was just so draconian, it was just unfair… basically slavery, but just for under 18’s.

He continued on: “look, I’ll go get some of the Chinese stuff you like, you work on your homework while I’m on the way, and we can watch another movie together once you’re done.”

“What movie?” I replied… maybe something good would come from this.

“It’s a Japanese one from Earth Aleph, it’s called Ghost in the Shell”

“Daaad… you know I don’t like scary movies.”

It wasn’t that I scared easily, it just…. I’d had enough of the monster stuff for a while.

“Not that kind of Ghosts you silly, now, you get of the couch and get started on your homework. I have my next shift tonight, and I’d like to catch a few hours of sleep before that.”

“Don’t have any homework today.”

“I happen to know you have algebra on the menu tonight” he replied.

Well, it’d been worth a try.

 

*** Rachel ***

Another empty bag. She’d have to get more stuff. Judas was getting too thin for her likes. He didn’t like the dry food she’d gotten last time, and she was all out of meat.

There was still some cereal, and some of the milk that didn’t go bad outside of the fridge, but that wouldn’t do for him.

Brutus was eating happily, getting a bit fat maybe. He needed more exercise, she knew, but that didn’t work normally. If she went out, people might see. They’d scream, more people would come, and the dogs would need to become bigger. That helped tire them out, but it didn’t help them lose weight.

She felt her stomach rumble. The dogs were happy, fed, so it was time for her to eat. She walked to the other side of the empty room, where she’d stored the food.

The bread had gotten a bit moldy, but it was probably still good. Then again, she didn’t want to spend all day being sick again, she needed to get food for the dogs.

Judas nuzzled against her legs. Interested in what she was looking at.

“Bread’s gone bad Judas.” She replied.

He wouldn’t understand, she knew. Judas didn’t know what bread was, but he was a smart dog. The tone, combined with Judas’s name and the word bad. The dog jumped up and licked at her face.

“Sit Judas, sit.”

He sat down again, and Rachel smiled. “Good boy”.

She checked through her stash. The cookies, the good ones with chocolate, they’d gone bad too. That had been unexpected. She kept them on an old shelf up high. She trusted Judas and Brutus not to take her food, but if she got sick, or hurt, she didn’t want them to eat chocolate by accident.

Maybe something to drink then? She looked at the stack of jugs containing milk, water, some soda. Most of them were nearly empty, and the floor beneath them was wet and damp. At least one of them had been leaking. Had that caused the mold? She vaguely remembered something about keeping food dry, but it had been a while ago. Back with that woman. The one that had tried to kill Rollo. Do this, do that, or else.

She’d need to go out again, tonight. Get more food, for the dogs and for her. Maybe some other stuff, one of those magazines with the pictures. Longingly, she looked at the small tv. It didn’t work anymore, just like the lights.

Outside. Into the city. Suburbs, really, but still. There’d be people, even if she went late at night. People would panic, call the police even if she asked them not to. There’s be sirens, maybe even a cape. Or worse, the other guys. Peeartea.

When she’d first gone to this city, before the winter, it’d been chaos. People attacked, lots of different people. She’d fought them off, but there were so many. Eventually, she’d figured it out. The stuff on the walls, they were markings for territory. Not markings you could smell, but ones to see.

Eventually, when she’d moved here, it’d calmed down. People stopped hunting her, there’d be cops, but they wouldn’t chase her if she was quick enough. Even the foam-people stopped, capes tended to leave her alone.

There was that one girl, the blonde, about a month ago. She hadn’t come back.

It was good, that they knew this was her territory. Meant she didn’t have to kill, to hurt.

Except those other guys. The ones with the weird guns. They’d come after her, every now and then. Sometimes they brought food. That food, she’d thrown away. Probably poisoned.

If she went out, those people would be there again. Trying to trap her with food. She wasn’t stupid, she didn’t fall for traps like that.

If only they left her alone.

She walked over to Brutus, Judas following behind her. The dog had finished his bowl, and was looking longingly at Judas’s.

Petting him, she activated her power, targeting both dogs. Slowly, but steadily, they started growing. Eventually, when they were both about the size of a motorcycle, she went to grab her bags, a construction of several sturdy shopping bags bound together went around Brutus’s torso, hanging loosely off of him. It looked silly, but it worked, and Brutus didn’t mind.

Judas, she mounted. He made a small noise, a short, happy bark. They were going out for a run, a real run, not a walk. She motioned with her legs, but Judas already knew what to do before she did so. He walked towards the door, where Rachel could open the chain keeping the big double door shut from the inside, a big lock she’d taken from some cyclist who’d dropped his bike and ran when he saw her.

“Store” was all she needed to say after she’d opened the door. They knew the way, and they flew forwards. Here, the roads were empty, it was too late and too desolate for people to run around. There’d been a few druggies, before. Not anymore.

After a minute, they passed a car on the street. Brutus dodged it, moving to the side, but not Judas. Judas decided to jump it, flying upwards with a massive jump.

The wind through her hair, Rachel, or Bitch, felt alive, free.

Until the car skidded to a halt behind her, slowly crashing into a tree.

Annoying. Her dogs were good enough to dodge cars, the person driving it was the only one to blame. But, they’d blame her. Probably.

Stupid. People were just so stupid.

And she’d have to hurry. Be at the store, and be back, before the sirens. Fighting cops again would… be a bother.

Another minute, and she saw the store, but Brutus, who had been in front, saw it first.

The glass at the front was followed by a metal curtain, but that dind’t stop Brutus, who simply charged through, relying on his strength. The barrier wasn’t very strong.

She jumped off of Judas, who went through the hole Brutus had made, and made her way inside, taking care not to cut herself on the glass or metal. That had happened before. She remembered the wound on her arm, it had gotten infected. After a while, she’d found some pills that had helped with it.

She made her way inside, and saw that Brutus had already made his way to the dog food, relatively close to the entrance. Judas was waiting for her.

“Go” she told him, and he ran towards the meat. Hopefully, he’d fatten himself up a little bit.

Meanwhile, she started loading up Brutus, increasing his bulk to help carry the bags. Once she was done with the dog food, she led him to the fruit. Apples, a watermelon, some banana’s, Brutus liked those too.

She noticed that they still hadn’t repaired the alarms. They hadn’t gone of the last few times.

Good, that meant she didn’t have to deal with the noise, and hopefully no-one would disturb her during her shopping trip.

Drinks, now, then chocolate and other snacks. Brutus knew the way, and she walked after him.

While loading Brutus up, however, Judas started barking.

That meant someone was there.

“Judas, here!” She shouted, hearing the dog crash through a stand on his way to her.

But It was taking too long. Judas wasn’t usually this slow, and he kept barking. If only she’d thought to bring her flashlight… No, it was empty, she’d need a new one. Or new batteries.

She jumped on Brutus, throwing herself on top of the harness of bags,

“Brutus, Judas, Home.” She shouted, something was wrong, she needed to get out of here. They ran for the exit. Brutus, now bigger than before, mauled at the metal again to make a path. She looked outside, there were people there. How? There had been no sirens, and wasn’t that…

She looked down, some sort of needle, or dart, or something, had lodged itself in her torso. It didn’t really hurt beyond a prick, but it felt weird. Brutus, with her on him, dashed forward. Behind her, she heard a shout, way louder than should be possible, followed by glass shattering.

Something hit Brutus, and her as well. A shock, like touching an electric wire, but worse, coming from above.

She hit the ground, and she heard Judas whining. She tried looking up, see what was happening, but she was too tired to raise her head.

Instead, she decided to dump her power into Brutus, but she was just so tired. It was hard to keep her eyes open. Someone was shooting, and there was a big flash. She stopped hearing Brutus.

Her eyes closed, and the only thing she had ears for was Judas. He’d been howling in pain and fear, aggression, but now… weird, he sounded happy, excited, like puppy. At least one of them was okay then… But Brutus…

She heard footsteps approaching her, but couldn’t quite bring up the energy to react, only barely managing to open her eyes. There was light now, quite bright, coming from something at ground level. Headlights or something?

The footsteps stopped behind her, followed by a few seconds of nothing happening. Then, with surprising strength, something picked her up, and held her. She moved her arms, trying to escape, but it didn’t take.

“Another dose? She’s a bit larger than I expected. “ a man said, his footsteps heavy and metallic as he approached… Larger? Was this about Brutus?

“No need, I can handle her, but thank you for offering.” The person holding her replied. Her voice seemed… Rachel wasn’t sure, she could never really tell. Happy maybe? Probably, happy they’d beaten her, hurt her dogs.

The woman started walking, and Rachel only felt her head get heavier. She wanted to fight, but at the same time… she was just too tired. Even staying awake, trying to struggle, it took everything she had.

Eventually, the woman holding her sat down again, and under the soft hum of an engine, unconsciousness claimed Rachel.


	29. Chapter 29

Gadget 5.4

Paperwork.

If there was anything Armsmaster hated more than criminals escaping him or someone trying to hurt his daughter it was paperwork.

In a way, he could understand it. The entire purpose of the Protectorate was to have civilian oversight by normal people for professional superheroes. In order to provide that over-sight, their actions needed to be written down.

Thus, paperwork.

Once, a few years ago, he had come up with a better solution. Instead of filling in several stacks of paperwork, he simply taped everything he did and send the tapes to his boss. That way, they could see exactly what happened. He’d even included an automatic transcription of every spoken word, as well as special commentary both in audio and written down, explaining what was happening, something inspired by the way that blind people watched tv and movies.

Of course, the government deemed it too efficient, and Alexandria had told him to get back to the paperwork.

Easy for her to see, as her abilities allowed her to do her paperwork at superhuman velocities.

Thus, it was quite clear that, since they allowed one power in the completion of paperwork, but not another, the PRT, as well as Alexandria, could be rather… What would be the right word? Powerist, powerism? Powerphobic wouldn’t fit, it was about inequality, not fear.

But, nonetheless, paperwork still needed doing.

Especially when a member of his team had decided that it would be a great idea to adopt a feral teenage supervillain.

But a planned attack on a supervillain meant a possible danger to civilians, and that meant paperwork.

Then, a successful attack on that supervillain meant even more paperwork.

Not to mention that one of the dogs, the one Gallant had brought into a state of overexcited happy puppy-behaviour, had slobbered all over his armour. Cleaning that had taken quite a while.

He needed more time, but he quite simply didn’t have any.

“Dragon?” he said, near silently. The computer still picked it up, and send a quick notification to the Canadian tinker. After a few seconds one of the monitors changed to show her face.

Or rather, her digital avatar. Instead of wearing a mask, Dragon had decided to simply fake all human contact altogether. It didn’t really matter to him, but he’d heard some people complain about her not showing her face.

It was weird, because those people would be perfectly okay with a face completely covered by a mask, but that was the kind of weirdness that was normal when you were a cape.

“Good afternoon, or should I say good evening?”

Colin looked at the clock, noting the hour. It was seven already.

“I have some forms here for the Youth Guard and CPS, could you give them a once-over? I’m not quite familiar with them.”

“Sure, I’ll take a look. This is about that girl, Rachel, right?”

“Yeah…” He answered.

He felt a bit bad about what he’d just done, using his friend like this. He knew Dragon. After she was done helping him with these forms, she’d ask if there was anything else she could help him with. At that point, it wouldn’t matter if he told her it wasn’t necessary, she would help him anyway,

It might not have been the most heroic thing to do, enlisting her to help him like that, but he needed to get home. Sely always said she could take care of herself, but the last time she ate alone she’d spilled her soup all over herself (luckily it hadn’t been too hot) and tried solving the problem by going directly into the shower.

Meaning the cast around her leg had gotten completely drenched.

Meaning a quick trip to the hospital.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t smart, she was incredibly intelligent when she set her mind to something, their 3-D chess matches were a testament to that, it was just that she tended not to think in the heat of the moment.

“Is something wrong Colin? You look worried.”

Sometimes, Dragon could read him like a book. Other times, not so much. Or maybe she did, but pretended not to in order to be polite. She was, after all, Canadian. Still, he was pretty sure she hadn’t picked up on his crush.

It was stupid, and he should just come out and tell her, but… What if she didn’t really like him? If she wasn’t interested in a relationship for one reason or another? Maybe she already had someone else, married in her civilian life. Maybe she was a Lesbian.

If he asked her out and it didn’t go well… It would probably turn awkward quickly. He really didn’t want to lose this friendship.

“It’s… Sely. I don’t like leaving her alone the entire evening, you know. She probably thinks I don’t have any time for her, that she’s a bother…”

“Relax Colin, She’s fourteen, she can take care of herself for an evening, and I’m sure she loves you just as much as you love her.”

“I… Thanks, but, you haven’t even met her and… I’m just worried something will happen to her again while I’m gone.”

Dragon’s face started moving in some sort of repressed laughter. It seemed natural, but when he thought about it, it was rather strange, that she’d pretend to be unable to fully hide her reaction. There was just so much attention to details like that in her.

“What, you mean like the shower thing? You know no-one got hurt in that right?”

“… You’re not wrong…”

“You know what? How about I’ll give her a call. I’ll check if everything is all right through the webcam and security system, and if need be I’ll give her a hand with her homework or something.”

He thought about that for a few seconds, what she’d proposed. It was…

Dragon meeting Sely, he just hoped they would hit it off together. If they didn’t…

“Just remember, I haven’t told her I’m Armsmaster yet.” He reminded her. Just barging in and introducing herself as Dragon would be a bit awkward.

“You still haven’t told her? Colin…”

Dragon’s avatar was scowling, angry at him.

“I know I should, but…” He waited for a few seconds, trying to find the right words to explain his thoughts. It made sense in his head, but explaining it to other people was something else.

“She spend two days fearing for her life through direct contact with parahumans. Someone who was, before that point, known as a hero was responsible for her ending up in the hospital and almost dying. If I tell her I’m a hero too… Would she be able to trust me?”

Dragon answered, faster than he expected. “I guess you have a point… But, don’t you think that not telling her also isn’t a good way to earn her trust?”

Colin sighed. He’d thought about that before. It had been a difficult choice. Ultimately, he suspected that at least part of the reason h hadn’t told her, was because he subconsciously craved that little bit of normalcy in his life. A few hours where he didn’t have to be Armsmaster, and could just be a man that watched movies with his daughter.

That meant things, those few hours. Every hour he didn’t train, didn’t built, it was an hour he didn’t become better. Another hour in which Dauntless was catching up to him.

And maybe he could live with that, if it meant waking up in the morning to find his daughter hugging him in her sleep. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing, that she sometimes couldn’t sleep because of the nightmares, but it had its benefits.

“… I guess I’ll just wait a few more weeks, until she’s properly settled in here. Maybe Argenta can help her deal with parahumans a bit better.”

“Okay Collin, I’ll think of something to hide my identity.” Dragon replied, before the screen went black.

Now, to finish all this paperwork.

*** Gadget ***

Once again, the stupid German told me her friends were immortal. I laughed, my lightning-gun would decide that. Looking around, I decided to for their mover, freshly back into the fight. She teleported twice in quick succession, but a quick boost from my weird jet-pack thing brought me to the other side of the building just when she turned the corner.

I zapped her, she would be down for at least twelve seconds. Now, to take down that ninja… Where was that little bastard, somewhere near our robot probably…

The phone started ringing

Not my phone, mind you. I had my phone turned off. Were I to turn it on, the only thing that could happen was someone stopping me from smacking people into bottomless pits.

No, it was the landline that was ringing.

That could probably wait until the end of the round, right?

I mean, who would call?

Emma? No, she’d send me a message on one of the fifty different social media thingamajigs she was a member of.

Someone from back in Westlake? No, they wouldn’t have the number.

Unless it was mom. I really didn’t feel like talking to mom. Not after what she’d done the last time we visited.

Dad had said I shouldn’t take it personally, that she had brain-damage. But I was pretty sure it was the moving around part of her brain that had gotten damaged. Not the thinking part.

One of my classmates here then? No, they’d have my mobile number, not the home one.

A teacher? No, teachers wouldn’t call me. And anyway, they’d call my dad on his phone like they’d done before.

Ah, there was the ninja, hidden in the little building, he probably needed a health-pack. I jumped in, ready to zap him with my tinker tech tesla… gun? Coil? Was there any applicable word that started with a T? Trinket maybe, but those were generally small. A tool then? Yes, I zapped him with my tinker tech tesla tool. Then, for good measure, I ate peanut butter on his corpse.

The phone stopped. It was probably nothing then. Someone calling me to inform me about how we were all doomed or something. Endbringer cults were weird like that, they’d just knock on your door and be all “Hey, we were just wondering if you’d ever heard about the good word of horrible and painful unavoidable death? Could we interest you in our extra-suffering package? Order now and choose which one of them gets to murder you in your sleep”

Leaving out, of course, that it was normal parahumans that were the real terror.

A victory message appeared on the middle of the screen. Followed shortly by a short clip of someone holding their left mouse button down.

The phone rang again…

I left the matchmaking queue, and stood up to go get it. It was probably important if they called twice.

I grabbed the horn. Which was a weird name for it, because phones didn’t have horns, hell, they weren’t even alive.

Probably weren’t even alive, you never knew these days.

Holding it to my ear, I started talking.

“Hello?”

A voice answered, a woman.

“Hello eh”

“My name’s not Eh. Why would I be called Eh?”

“I’m not calling you Eh, eh”

“You just…”

“eh?” the voice started laughing. Weird, she hadn’t even introduced herself.

The voice continued. “Sorry, I’m Canadian, that’s just how we talk eh.”

“… Canada isn’t real, everyone knows that.”

“Really? Why do you think so eh?”

“Well, what sounds more likely to you, that there’s a race of people that ice-skates everywhere and rides around on Moose, or Meese, or whatever the plural is, or that Canada isn’t real.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I’ve never really thought about it like that. So, if Canada isn’t real, why do so many people pretend it is eh?”

“Because if not, Dragon will eat them.”

“I have to say… I’m pretty sure Dragon doesn’t eat people eh.”

“You’re just saying that because you’re scared of her, all Canadians are like that.”

“Oh? But I thought Canadians weren’t real?”

And I got her, she thought she could win, drive me into a corner, but she couldn’t, she wasn’t smart enough. Sure, I had no idea who she was or why she called, but I’d won.

“And now I have you.”

“You… have me? Eh?”

“You forgot to say Eh, therefore, you aren’t really Canadian, proving Canada isn’t real.”

“Well, I guess you’re right then Sely.”

“… How’d you know my name?”

“Your father told me.”

Why would my father tell random women who were supposedly from Canada my name…

Unless… was this the movie girl? Why would movie girl call me instead of my dad? Was she expecting my dad to be home?

No, that was silly, I was pretty sure movie girl also had an office job with the PRT. After all, that’s why she talked to dad every day, and then she’d know that he was still at work.

“Dad didn’t tell me your name” I replied. If this was movie girl, I’d have to be smooth.

“Really?” She answered, without the Eh, I knew she wasn’t really Canadian anyway.

“yup”.

She was silent for about half a second, did she not know her own name?

“Well, you can call me Miss Richter.”

“Miss huh? So not Missus?”

“I… yes, that is correct.”

“So… why are you calling?”

“Just to have a friendly chat with my friend’s daughter, eh.”

“I don’t buy it… Canadians don’t call for no reason.”

“I thought Canadians didn’t extist.”

“… Because they’re all ghosts?”

“Well then Sely, in that case, I’m going to ask you a question, and if you don’t answer me, I’ll come and haunt you”

“Like… in my house?”

“yes, I will haunt your house”

“And, like, in my bedroom”

“Yes, I’ll hide under your bed, or maybe in your closet”

“What about in my dad’s room?”

“…Maybe?”

“So… what’s the question?”

“Well, the very important question your father told me to ask you, was whether or not you’ve done your homework…”

“…Yes…“

The real answer was no. My excuse? This meant she’d haunt my dad’s bedroom, I was pretty sure at least.

“Really?”

“Really”

“… Do you want me to haunt you?”

“… No?”

“….”

“…”

After about half a minute, the silence was broken by a sound from my laptop.

A friend request.

“How about we play a few rounds?” The voice on the telephone said.

*** Dragon ***

Dragon’s algorithm parsed the email.

She should’ve expected this, really.

They weren’t even technically wrong.

It was still annoying.

Was it really aimbotting if it was part of your code?


	30. Chapter 30

Gadget 5.5  
Cancer…

Dennis still couldn’t believe it. Cancer happened, sure, but cancer was something that happened on TV, not something that happened to your father.

His parents were with each other, crying. His sister, temporarily back from college, was talking to the doctors. Going through treatment options, insurance coverage, payment plans…

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and grabbed it. A message from someone at school, a friend, asking if he wanted to come online and play a game together

How the fuck could people think about things like that when his father was dying.

You went to school, you got a degree, a job, a wife, two children, and then you died because your body betrayed you.

He’d heard the word ‘acute’ mentioned. He knew what that meant. It meant there wasn’t any time, that things were going too fast.

A week ago, his dad had been okay, a week ago, they’d gone to the movies together.

Now the doctors were saying that there probably wasn’t enough time for the chemo to kick in.

His dad was going to die, and there was nothing he could do.

***

A bone marrow transplant…

Some idiot had died because he was too cool to wear a helmet on a motorcycle, and now, his father could live… Maybe…

The operation had started an hour ago, and all he could do was look at that little light above the door.

They weren’t allowed to go in there. Wouldn’t do to have the family present when it really mattered.

He hoped it would be allright. After all, these were doctors, they’d studied long and hard to do exactly this.

They could help, Dennis couldn’t.

But he couldn’t help but note that, over the last few minutes, traffic had increased. Several extra doctors were walking into the surgery room.

He heard the door move, and watched. Someone was coming out, some sort of nurse with a tray of used equipment or something. Something medical he couldn’t understand.

He listened to what was happening on the other side of the door.

“He’s going …. Something something…”

“Something something Cardiac arrest”

“Something something losing him.”

He heard his mother start crying.

He heard his sister slump down on her chair, unable to sit upright any longer.

He had to do something…

Dennis ran forward, to the room. The nurse tried to block him, said something he couldn’t hear. Or rather, didn’t pay attention to.

He shoved her aside. He felt bad for her, as he saw her fall to the ground, but this was his father dammit. There had to be something he could do…

He saw his father, his body opened up, monitors beeping around him, going faster and faster.

One of the doctors, standing to the side, saw him.

“Look kid, I know it’s hard, but the best thing you can do for your dad is leave.” The man said, walking closer to Dennis.

“But… but… I can help…”

The man looked at him, sadness visible in his eyes. “I’m sorry, but…”

The man held an arm out, blocking his path, just at the moment the monitor started flat-lining.

The doctors were shouting something, grabbing for tools. But they were panicking, dropping stuff. His father, the doctors, they just needed a bit more time.

Invisitext

He catched himself before falling to the ground. Had he stumbled? He was pretty sure he hadn’t, but…

The man in front of him, the doctor that wanted him to leave, had caught him. Had he fainted? No, it had been less than a second… but why wasn’t the man reacting... why wasn’t he moving?

He’s locked in time, something told him. He felt it, in his fingertips.

Dennis ran forward, towards his father. Someone else tried to stop him, and he stopped her instead. Then, when he reached his father, he did what he finally could. He bought the man some time. Just a few more minutes for the doctors to solve the problem.

***

They were sitting in the living room, watching the news. His father… he wasn’t healthy, but the man was recovering.

It was the head of surgery that had taken charge, after seeing what Dennis had done. Told him when to freeze, and what to freeze. After they were done, the people in the room had promised to keep it a secret. Dennis wasn’t sure if he could believe them, but there was little he could do. He was just happy to have his father back. If that meant people knowing he had suddenly gotten powers, then he could live with that.

The news article was about the local wards team, who had apparently gotten a new recruit. Dennis, and most everyone else in Arcadia, had expected as much, seeing as a load of blonde bombshells had been enrolled in the middle of the school year. A fat lady with an ugly bob cut was talking right now, giving some sort of speech about what being a hero meant. How both parahumans and normal people could both be heroes, how the police, firemen, doctors and teachers were the real heroes of society.

It annoyed him a bit. Wasn’t this supposed to be about the new Ward? Was it really a good idea to start a teenage girl’s superhero career with a speech about other people?

“I’m guessing she thinks that the real heroes of society are chocolatiers.”

His mother groaned, “Dennis…” but his father started laughing, at least until he hurt himself.

Triumph entered the stage, a small bandage around one of his arms, had something happened? He remembered classmates talking about a scuffle up north, something with a convenience store.

“Hello everyone” the leader of the wards began his speech.

“The last couple of months have been hectic. I’ve inherited a great team from Velocity, and have had nothing but support from the brave heroes I’m now in charge of.”

“Now, I am proud to say, that I have been given the honour to bring you all some great news! A new hero has stepped up to join our ranks, sworn to defend the good people of our city. And though the might be young and inexperienced, I have no doubt at all that someday in the future, she will be standing here in my place, announcing the arrival of a new Ward. Ladies and Gentlemen , I am proud to announce, Argenta!”

As he’d suspected, a girl walked onto the stage. Her armour was coloured silver, and shaped like that of a medieval knight, but there were some concessions made on that point. Her chest contained a notable bump, to accommodate her assets, and a metal skirt covered the top half of her legs. The helmet also had a more feminine design, the opening at the front was heart-shaped, with a visor covering her eyes, and her hair came out in a ponytail at the back.

He wasn’t quite sure how old she was, given how much of her body was armoured. The girls that had arrived had been spread out in age, the connecting factor being that they all had long blonde hair, were of medium height, and generally had quite a bit in the form of assets. She could be a particularly well-endowed fourteen year old, or she could be seventeen.

His phone buzzed with a message from a friend. “Told you, total bombshell.”

*** Argenta ***

“Hello everyone” Emma said. The glare of the cameras being reflected by her visor. They were taking a LOT of pictures. This was amazing.

“I’m Argenta, I like music, cheerleading, ballet…”

She stopped talking. That wasn’t right… Those were Emma’s interests, she wasn’t Emma, she was Argenta, she was a floating armoured badass, not a girl that liked ballet. She had to salvage this situation quickly.

“Cycling, and arresting criminals.”

People laughed at that, hopefully, that meant they’d focus less on her earlier stuff. Before this, she’d gone over the event with the PR woman. They’d discussed what to say, how to answer questions. But she couldn’t really remember any of that with all those cameras in front of her.

“I can make lightning and I can sort of float and I can move stuff around and turn on the lights and.”

Triumph put a hand on her shoulder, and interrupted.

“Come on Argenta, how about we leave some questions for the press to ask.”

“I… uhm… sure thing boss. Ehhm, any questions anyone?”

At that, the crowd started with a barrage of questions, to many to really answer. Eventually, after trying once or twice, Emma decided to pick just one. “Can you show your power”.

Sure, she could, easy-peasy. She could show them her floating.

Argenta activated her power, electricity flowing from her body, to the lines in the undersuit, into the metal of her armour. From there, tendrils sprang out, some into the air around her, but most of them to the ground. Some of them reached the microphones, which temporarily shorted out, the voltage of her power being far larger than what was usual in a microphone.

People panicked for a second after a feedback look made a loud noise, but she quickly managed to take control of the microphones, dialling her powers back down. They were very different from light-bulbs.

“Ehhm, oops? Sorry, won’t happen again.” She said, before lifting herself a few feet upwards, into the air.

*** Shadow Stalker***

“Would you look at that Uber, taking down the press at her first outing. A bold move!” 

“A bold move indeed Leet, we’ll see how that turns out for her in the second half. What do you think, will coach Triumph swap her out for someone else? Or does he trust this young talent’s instincts.”

“You never know Uber, but you know what they say, To win the game, they’ll have to score more points than their enemies”

“That’s right indeed Leet, and it’s already the third inning, but I think this floating manoeuvre just might earn Argenta a three-pointer.”

“Uber…”

“yes Leet?”

“I’m pretty sure that three-pointers are basketball, not soccer.”

“Soccer? I thought we were doing baseball?”

“Why would we be doing baseball in our coverage of Argenta’s reveal?”

“… To get to second base? “

The two of them kept bickering, as Sophia threw her phone to the floor.

The roof, really, seeing as she was standing on top of a building.

It had been such a good plan. Uber and Leet always live-streamed their villainous antics like a bunch of degenerates. So she’d gotten a subscription, notifying her whenever they went online.

This time, she was in the middle of the city, getting rid of the vermin, when she was notified of an on-going new episode.

Except instead of them being a bunch of pathetic idiots and trying to rob some place with some crazy theme, they’d done commentary on a fucking ward unveiling.

And what a ward at that. A fucking pretty little princess. Argenta was pathetic, the wards were pathetic. Bunch of cowards pretending to be something. They thought having powers meant they could do what she did. They couldn’t.

She decided to start running. Find some asshole to take down, someone worthy to protect.

She shifted to her shadow-state, and jumped. Flying through the air, shifting back just as she hit the ground. It felt amazing, the wind blowing right through her, feeding her.

Another jump, and another, and another.

She wasn’t in the good part of town anymore. Now, she was in Empire territory.

Nazi’s. Pathetic little shits. Cowards. People so utterly useless that the only thing they could latch on to was the colour of their skin.

For a bunch of so-called übermenschen, way too many of them were drug-addled illiterate weaklings.

Sure, the few at the top could be dangerous. She’d heard the stories about Hookwolf, about Krieg, about Night and Fog.

But those were just figureheads.

For all they bragged about having the most capes in the city, most of the empire goons were pathetic little nobodies.

Like the drug dealer below her, standing on his little corner, peddling his fucking wares.

Greedy little fuck couldn’t even keep to his own ideology, he sold to people of all races, as long as they had money.

Too bad it was just a fucking peddler. There wouldn’t be anyone worthy coming to him, there wouldn’t be anyone to test.

Pathetic little addicts buying from a pathetic little Nazi, that’s all there was to it.

But Sophia really needed to fucking punch someone, now that she’d gotten her hopes crushed by Uber and Leet.

She shifted to her shadow-form, and dropped down.

The man was busy selling to someone too drugged up to properly notice her. Sophia shifted back to her normal state, and grabbed her bat.

She swung for the right leg, and heard a satisfying grunt from the Nazi. No cracking noise, too bad.

The addict that was buying from the man ran for it. She wondered if she should shoot him.

Probably wasn’t worth the ammo, the guy would end up dead in a ditch sooner or later anyway. That was what this city did to addicts. The ditch, or the Merchants, and you didn’t get to join the Merchants if you bought from Nazis.

The Nazi went for his side, a gun, probably.

Didn’t matter, as her fist just hit him square in the nose, quickly followed up by two more strikes. One in the eye, the other on the lips. Blood seeped out of the man’s mouth. Good.

Somehow, he’d managed to stay standing, and get a hold on a gun. The man shot, One, two, three times. All too late. Shadow Stalker had gone dark, and pushed herself through the man, giving him a kick in the kidney for his efforts. The man groaned, so she dropped again, striking for the legs with her bat. This time, he fell to the ground.

“Kapher pfwhill fwhucking mur-” His attempted threat stopped when she kicked him in the sides again.

Empty threats, Kaiser was too pathetic to face her in battle, hiding behind his little Nazi soldiers.

If she remembered the history lesson right, Hitler had killed himself, maybe Kaiser would do so too, like the coward he was.

She waited a few seconds, kicking when the little shit on the floor tried to move. When he’d gotten the point, she started searching him. White powders, pills, other things like that.

She took them, as well as the money in the man’s wallet.

And his license, his credit card, things like that. Every day the man stood in line at the DMV was a day the city was freed of his patheticness.

She looked around at the empty streets. The junk wouldn’t have called, and there was no-one else around.

She grabbed her phone.

Grabbed at the place where her phone should be.

FUCK, it was still on the roof, way back.

Uber and Leet fucking ruined every fucking thing.

By the time she’d gotten there, the degenerate under her boots would be standing again, or have friends or something.

Use his phone then.

She grabbed it, it wasn’t secured.

Too bad, meant she didn’t have an excuse to hit the guy again.

She called.

“911, what is your emergency?” A chipper voice said, someone was having a good mood.

“I’ve got some fucking Nazi here, was selling drugs to hobo’s.”

The line was silent for a few seconds.

“Shadow Stalker, you know you’re supposed to call the PRT line for this.”

This shit again. Fuck Dauntless and his fucking “here’s a private number so we know it’s fucking you” bullshit.

They probably wouldn’t even arrest this fucker, that’s how fucking useless they were.

It was supposed to be simple, she beat them up, and they put them in jail.

And then fucking Dauntless drops down from the sky because some pathetic little degenerate had a concussion. Seriously, who gave a fuck about Nazi’s and other bangers?

“Fuck the fucking PRT you grabbing this guy or not, s’near Browning Street and Hyde street.”

She threw the phone away, and grabbed the thug’s belt, twisting his arms and legs together and tying them up. She really should’ve gotten some fucking zip ties or something.

Then, she left, walking under a nearby fire escape, jumping, shifting, and shifting back once she was up a floor. A couple of repeats and she was on the roof again.

Now to get back to her fucking phone again. Fucking Uber and Leet going soft like a bunch of whiny little babies.

Why was everyone around her so utterly pathetic?

*** Gadget ***

I’d promised Emma I’d watch.

I hadn’t promised her I’d watch on the news.

No, instead, I’d been watching Uber and Leet’s live commentary.

It was saddening really. Them parodying anything other than video-games. Without even breaking any laws. They didn’t even know half the sports they were parodying. Everyone knew that Soccer worked with Innings, not rounds. Probably.

But, it had given me inspiration.

I now knew what to do with my audio-jack.

I’d call them out on this shit.

The internet was filled with clips of the duo. All I had to do, was clean up the sound, cut out specific words and paste them together in new sentences, and voila, no-one would ever be able to take them seriously again.

Plus, everyone in school would hear it, so they wouldn’t be able to take school seriously either.

Which meant less homework? Dad couldn’t ask her to do homework for a school that randomly got its communication system hijacked by Uber and Leet, right?

And if not, well, it would still be really funny.

Almost as funny as moving all the frogs for Biology class to the locker rooms.

I hadn’t expected the boys to actually be louder than the girls.

I grabbed my phone and send a message. “gratz on it being official. Having fun?”

It took a few minutes, but I got a return message “Yes have fun need2goonpatrol”

That was right, she’d have to go on patrol now.

I just couldn’t believe it, miss pipsqueak mcsparkypants keeping the peace as a hero.

Sure, the official name was Argenta, but sparkypants just sounded so much better.

Even though she had a skirt.

Even though she hated the name sparkypants for some reason.

Especially because she hated to the name sparkypants.

I wondered what kind of hero she’d be. I… hadn’t really looked up what kind of heroes Brockton Bay had. I knew there was healerchick, who was in some sort of new-age music group or something called new-wave. I also knew there was attention-girl, mostly because all the guys kept looking at her during lunch. She was… captivating.

Then of course, there had been Armsmaster and Assault. Everyone knew Armsmaster, and Emma wouldn’t shut up about Assault in her messages, so those two I knew.

Then there was gun-girl, who’s superpower was guns. Sort of similar to mine, but she only had one gun at the same time. Also she wasn’t a Tinker, probably.

Then there was Greek dude, some sort of puppy-based heroine, at least that’s what Emma Said Assault said, someone who was really fast.

And then in the wards, you had Emma, you had Vista, whom I was pretty sure was the girl I’d drank coffee with, and a whole lot of dudes that I only really knew through Emma’s description.

There was Beefcake, who had the power of shouting. I think that was the guy that was the leader, Triumph.

There was space-Bieber, who was apparently already taken.

There was back-up beefcake, who had that name because he was beefcake for when beefcake wasn’t around, and because his body was one big massive back-up.

And then there was Nerd. For some reason Emma didn’t want to talk about Nerd, even though he had laserguns and everything.

Sure, his laserguns didn’t make the “pew-pew” sounds that a proper gun should, but it was still cool.

Except, of course, when you were Emma and you thought it was icky.

I wondered who she’d be patrolling with. Probably beefcake, if he was the leader and it’d be her first patrol.

Maybe I should go find her and annoy her while she was in costume… that could be fun.

Or I could try to get some work done on designing my hookshot. It sucked, not having two working arms while building, but it did mean I had the time to draw up plans.

Even if those plans were mostly just action-pictures instead of technical designs.

Focussing on one project without even building it was almost as hard as doing homework every single evening.

It’d been fun, skipping it to play games, but having to catch up at night before dad figured it out sucked.

And it’s not like It mattered, my grades probably still sucked anyway.


	31. Chapter 31

Gadget 5.6  
She threw another punch at the stupid idiot in front of her, but the woman caught her fist. Just like the last ten times.

“I know you’re angry, but you have to understand, violence isn’t going to do anything here.” The woman said.

She was lying, trying to get her to give up.

Rachel threw another punch, this time aiming at the stomach. Again, the woman was faster than her.

It wasn’t fair. She’d just sit perfectly still until the last moment, when Rachel’s punches were blocked.

“Where’s Brutus!!!”

If only Brutus or Judas were here, they’d show this bitch not to mess with her.

“As I said before Rachel, Brutus is upstairs in the yard.”

Rachel sank to the floor. “Lemme go…”

Couldn’t that annoying woman just kill her and get it over with already…

“Rachel… We can go see Brutus and Judas, but you’re going to have to calm down first.”

Rachel rose again, throwing herself against the woman in anger. “Liar! Let me GO!”

Again, the woman resisted her without a sweat.

“Rachel, look at me.” The woman said. One of her hands moving towards the back of Rachel’s head, turning it so she had to look the woman in the eyes.

The woman spoke again.

“Rachel, I promise you, I will never, ever, lie to you, okay?”

The woman let her go, and Rachel stumbled back, sitting down on the small bed in the middle of the room. Not knowing what to do, she looked through the small window. All she could see through the thick glass was the cloud=covered night sky. How long had she been here? It had been morning when she’d awoken here, with the woman in front of her.

Jessica, that’s how she’d introduced herself. Rachel wasn’t sure what this woman, this Jessica, wanted from her. She just kept saying the same few things, and she kept being so much faster and stronger than Rachel. She’d never make it out, never find Brutus and Judas again.

She turned over and lay down on her side. It was all useless.

Time went by, Rachel wasn’t sure how long, until the woman spoke again.

“See? I told you you could calm down Rachel.”

The woman was lying again, she knew the type, promises and lies, all of them.

A hand touched hers, and Rachel was about to panick again.

“It’s allright Rachel, we’re just going to go see Brutus and Judas.”

Rachel didn’t really react as the woman led her out of the room, through a maze of corridors. She wasn’t sure what was about to happen, but she’d decided that there was nothing she could do anyway.

After two sets of stairs, they entered a small inner courtyard. Rachel looked around, was this where they were going to get rid of her?

Then she saw Brutus, walking towards her, slowly. He was absolutely exhausted. Like he’d been running all day.

“No using your power right now Rachel.” The woman said. Rachel didn’t even notice, she knelt down and embraced Brutus, who had started licking her face. Not entirely how she’d trained him, but it didn’t really matter right now.

She looked around, trying to find Judas.

She saw him in a corner, lying on top of a girl in some weird green-white costume, a chewed up tennis ball lying to the side of them.

“Now Rachel, how about we both go catch some shut-eye? I think Brutus and Judas have had a very exhausting day.”

Rachel didn’t really care what the woman was saying, all that mattered was that her dogs were safe.

*** Gadget ***

Someone was whispering, someone I didn’t know.

Probably robbers, here to steal my stuff.

Or not, given that I just heard my dad whisper as well.

Why was I hearing him whisper.

Oh, of course, because I’d fallen asleep on the couch.

I opened my eyes, someone, probably dad, had thrown a blanket over me. Looking further, I saw the TV shut down, and several people sitting at the dining table, playing some sort of card game.

“Just got a message from Jess, looks like she’s finally gone to sleep.” A woman said. She didn’t sound like Miss Richter, so I wondered what she was doing here.

“Well, you gotta give it to the girl, she’s got stamina.” Someone else replied. I couldn’t quite make out who said what.

“I just hope it won’t be all for nothing.” The woman replied.

I rubbed at my eyes, trying to get a better look at them. There were three people, one of them my dad.

“Looks like someone woke up.” dad said.

“Mornin” I replied. I took a better look at the two strangers. The woman looked vaguely foreign, kinda sorta middle-eastish in looks, but very much American in dress. The guy was young, maybe like twenty or something. He seemed like an average sort of guy, the sort of person you’d find in the background of pictures somewhere.

I moved myself until I sat up-right. Dad stood up and walked towards me, scratching the top of my head a little. “Do you want me to carry you to bed, or are you joining us for a round?”

I thought about it for a second. No, far less than a second. If this woman was a rival for miss Richter, I’d need to figure out her weak points. ”I’ll join.”

Dad helped me stand up. I didn’t need it, but it sure helped. I sat down opposite the woman, the better to keep my eye on her. Dad sat down next to me.

“Hi, I’m Hannah.” She said. I already disliked her name.

“Robin.” The guy said. He seemed okay, even if it was sort of a girl’s name.

“Sely” I answered.

“How about a game of Hearts?” Hannah asked.

Hearts huh… Hearts would work.

***

This was frustrating. This was very, very frustrating. It seemed like, every time I’d tried something, she KNEW. She didn’t say anything about it, but I could see it in her eyes.

The worst part? She was so damn good. It was like she remembered exactly who had played which cards.

And dad hadn’t noticed a thing, he was talking about some sort of office politics with Robin. Something about a girl called Jessica overworking herself, and some other guy smoking pot or something, followed by a discussion about the new intern, who, apparently, had an electrifying personality.

“You’re pretty good at this” Hannah said, a stupid smirk upon her stupid face.

I didn’t reply. Mostly because I wasn’t quite sure what to say.

“Is something wrong?” she continued.

“mm tired,,,”

She looked at her watch. “That late already? We should probably get going.

“Before we go, didn’t you have a present in the car, Colin?”

Dad thought about it for a second, then nodded. “Sely, how about you brush your teeth and get into bed, and I’ll see out my friends and bring you your present.

“Sure dad.”

Robin held out his hand, “Nice meeting you Sely.”

I shook it, “same…”

Hannah instead decided to rub her knuckles over my head and mess up my hair. “I’ll make sure your dad keeps his eyes on you, little rascal.” The content of the words didn’t match the smile on her face.

I stuck out my tongue and went upstairs.

A few minutes after I’d put on my pajama’s, dad knocked on the door.

“Come in”. I answered.

He entered, with a big taped up cardboard box in his hands.

He gestured to the bed. “You wanna sit down and tell me what that stuff with Hannah was all about?

…. So he’d noticed…

I sat down on my bed, and dad took a seat right next to me, putting an arm around my shoulder.

“She’s stupid.”

Dad sighed. “Can you explain why she’s stupid Sely? Because she’s an important colleague of mine, and if you don’t like her, I’d like to know why.”

I wondered what to do. It wasn’t like I could tell him all the reasons. At least not the most important one.

“She just keeps remembering all the cards like a tryhard, and her voice is stupid, and her opinions are stupid, and she’s got a gun which is stupid.”

I didn’t tell him what exactly was stupid about the gun. I still wasn’t quite sure what it was. It had felt weird, like something bigger than it actually was or something.

“So you noticed about the gun…” Dad sounded worried.

“yeah…”

“She… has her reasons for always having it with her. Always and everywhere.”

“Even in the shower?”

Dad chuckled at that. “Well, I haven’t checked, but I presume so.”

Good, that meant he hadn’t seen her naked yet.

“Dad?”

“Yes sweety?”

“Do you want to see her in the shower?”

“That’s… well… a little inappro-“

“Because if you want to see anyone in the shower I think it should be Miss Richter!”

There. I’d actually said it…

Shit… dad would hate me now… Miss Richter would probably also hate me…

I dun goofed.

Dad hugged me closer to him, and I looked up at his face, it was red in anger… No, not anger, shame? Embarrassment?

“Well, that would be something now wouldn’t it Sely…” he said.

“So… what are you waiting for?”

“Waiting to do what? I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

“Seeing her in the shower… duh…”

Dad laughed again, a smirk on his face. This was good, I could remember this, bring it out whenever I wanted.

“Well, it’s… not that easy really. I mean… I don’t think she even likes me…”

“Dad.”

“Yes?”

“How do you even know she doesn’t like you if you haven’t even asked?”

“Well. I guess.”

“Dad… I promised to do my homework, so you gotta promise me you’ll ask her out the next time you see her.”

“… Fine…”

“gotta hear that clearly dad.”

“Fine. Sely, I promise that the next time I see her I’ll ask her out.”

“… I want that on paper.”

“You’re pushing it now.”

He hugged me again, and grabbed the box he’d been carrying.

“So, about your present. It’s not actually mine, but from someone else, and, it’s been looked over by several people, but it’s finally been cleared.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh.”

“Can you guess who made it for you?”

“… How can I guess when I don’t know what it is dad?”

“Fair point.” He handed me the box, and I tore it open. There were several layers of packaging, some air-tight, that I had to tear through, but after a minute or two I had it in my hands.

It was big, absolutely massive, roughly twice as long as my body, and half a meter wide, but the fabric was very thin, covered in a white-blue pattern of spirals and circles, sort of like a bubble chamber, with blue lines covering the white field. It was much bigger than my old scarf had been.

Given the colour scheme, and the weird material, I immediately knew who had made this thing.

“What’d Paige make it from?”

“It’s rather interesting actually, it’s some sort of mixture of silk and carbon nano-tubes, or at least analogous to it, that’s what makes it so strong even though it’s so thin.”

“sweeeet. I’m gonna send her another letter.”

Before I could stand up, dad stopped me.

“No, you’re going to go to sleep. You can write your letter tomorrow.”

*** Argenta ***

“So then, when he tried to run away, I was all like no you won’t, and then I zapped him and he fell flat on his face and started screaming and shouting at me because I was so angry”

“Really? From one zapping?”

“Yup, so you know what I did?”

“… You asked him if he spoke to his mother with that mouth?”

“Nope, I dropped down and smacked my big blue monkeyballs in his face.”

Emma almost had a spit-take at that. Leave it to Sely to describe a video-game in such detail in the middle of lunch.

“So, how did your game go last night?” she asked, suggestively. They both knew they weren’t talking about a game here, but no-one else in the cafeteria could know. Except for Rory, or Carlos, or Dean, or Chris. Not Missy though, she was still in Middle School.

“It was amazing, we beat like three people together.”

“Who were you playing with?”

“This guy that kept shouting over the microphone.”

“He shout at any enemies?”

“Not really, most just surrendered when they saw us, I did get to grab one though.”

“Did you zap him?”

“I… no, that’s dangerous.”

“Not even a little?” Sely sounded dejected.

“No… I don’t want to, you know…”

“Oh yeah… sorry, I guess.”

They sat together for a bit, eating. After a minute, Sely’d started a conversation with someone else about the upcoming art class. Art class was one of the only classes Emma shared with Sely. She’d been here, at this school, for two weeks now, and Rory had said that it’d probably be safe to start hanging out with the others, as long as she didn’t make it too obvious, so they’d be able to hang out during art class this afternoon.

Problem was, Chris was also in art-class, and he’d probably ruin everything by being such a nerd.

Emma looked around the cafeteria, the groups of people hanging around. There were some cliques at Arcadia high, although there weren’t as many as you’d expect. First of all, there were the cheerleaders. She’d looked into joining, but it turned out that the Arcadia cheer team was very competitive, and what with her job as a superhero, she simply wouldn’t have enough time for all the training. What was weird was that none of the girls that had been brought in as ‘decoys’ had joined up either. Maybe they were afraid that, if they joined, people would actually believe that they were Argenta.

There were also the Jocks, a loose collection of hunky assholes. Once, Emma would have loved to hang out with them. Big guys, lots of muscles, exactly the kind of thing she was sort of interested in.

Nowadays, she had a bit more perspective. Sure, big hunky beefcake that was good at throwing a ball around was fun, but it failed completely in comparison to beefcake that punches criminals. They quite simply couldn’t compete.

Then there were the nerds. Strangely enough a group that Chris wasn’t a part of. Most of them played computer games, loved math, that sort of stuff, but there was one overarching factor.

Where back in Westlake they’d been mild, here they were absolutely massively into capes.

Armsmaster shoes, Dauntless pants, Alexandria T-shirts, Myrddin wizard hats, ‘Dragon-Approved’ Laptops and smartphones, they were obsessed to a dangerous degree with all things cape.

Quite a few of them were already preparing a costume for the upcoming cape-con in Boston. Upcoming meaning, of course, a couple of months from now, in the middle of the summer vacation.

She really didn’t want to see any guys dressed up as her, that would just be wrong.

She looked back at her table when she noticed someone new talking to Sely. A someone new who was quite definitely Dean’s girlfriend Glory Girl. They hadn’t met yet, but Dean talked about her a lot. He was kind of whipped.

“So, what’s it made from” Victoria asked, holding one end of Sely’s new scarf. It was good, seeing her with one again, Sely wasn’t Sely without an overly massive scarf hanging around her neck.

“Some sorta weird magic spidertube shit.”

Victoria took half a step back, her aura flaring up just a bit “Spiders? Ew?”

“What? You never see anyone wear silk?”

“I… Guess you’re right? Where’d you get it?”

Emma looked at Sely, she… wasn’t taking the interrogation very well.

She could understand why. Brutes could be scary, and Sely was still wearing casts from the last one.

She decided to stand up and interfere, be more assertive. Standing next to Sely, she started talking.

“We got it from this new exclusive boutique called Nonya.”

“Oh, Nonya? Didn’t know they did scarfs, guessing it was a costum design?” Glory Girl answered.

And it had been such a good set-up too. All Victoria would’ve said was something along the lines of ‘What’s a Nonya’, and she’d be able to counter with ‘Nonya Business!’ It had sounded so cool in her head!

“Yeah, one of a kind, can’t get anything like this, it’s too exclusive.”

Sely turned around and looked at Emma with her mouth half open, but before she could say anything, Victoria counterattacked.

“Well, what I’m wearing right now is a design by Parian! She’s a both a cape AND a fashion designer you know, she made this with her power, can’t get more exclusive than that!”

Parian, Emma had heard about her. Still, Sely’s scarf was even more exclusive, the materials having been made by a power, but she probably didn’t want that information just thrown around. She’d need another venue for a counter-attack.

“What? Parian, the fashion designer whose work is so shit she’s afraid to show her own face?”

At that, the aura flared up even higher, and through the supernatural fear, Emma knew that she’d just won.

She’d still have to deal with the angry mask-less superhero in front of her though.

“Riiiiiiing”

Wowzers, talk about saved by the bell.

Emma was about to say something snappy about it, but saw that Victoria was already marching off.

*** Kid Win ***

Argenta was pretty.

No, that wasn’t it, Argenta wasn’t just pretty, Argenta was beautiful. Absolutely everything about her was perfect. Her hair, her face, her body. On her very first patrol, she’d taken out three gangbangers with Triumph, she was already a better hero than he was.

That was why it was getting really hard to concentrate on this art assignment, a four-person thing where everyone was only allowed to use a single colour. Miss Henderson had the silliest assignments.

In his group? Argenta, or Emma out of costume, a fat black kid called Blake, and a friend of Emma’s with a massive scarf and two broken bones called Sely.

When he’d first me the girl, he’d thought he knew her from something, but he wasn’t sure what.

About five minutes in, she’d complained she had to go to the bathroom, and had left them to do the project with three people.

Emma, nice as she was, was afraid of getting herself dirty with the paint.

And Blake just had absolutely no artistic talent.

In short, their reproduction of the Mona Lisa was looking very very much like a Smurf, since the only colour he had to work with was blue.

After about fifteen minutes, Sely returned to class. The teacher asked why it had taken her so long, and she could only point at the crutch and the cast on her arm.

Sely was surprisingly good at painting with one working arm though. And the Red portions of the painting were also coming along nicely.

Yellow and Green were still almost completely absent, except for a few dots on Emma’s nose. She made everything look beautiful.

Then, the intercom system went off.

“Hello everyone, and welcome to the Uber and Leet show!”


	32. Chapter 32

Gadget 5.7  
This was utterly amazing.

Everyone was listening, and no-one had any idea I had done this. They didn’t even know it was a false alarm.

“And today, we will be playing Bully” my synthesized version of Leet’s voice thundered over the speakers.

“Or, for our overseas watchers, Canis Canem Edit” Uber continued.

It had taken some work to find something applicable to high-school, but this one would probably work.

“So, the question on all your minds is, what will this involve?”

I looked around the class, the reactions were… not entirely as I suspected. People weren’t panicking as much as I expected. It was like they weren’t afraid of this pair of dangerous criminals.

In retrospect, why would they be. This was Arcadia, populated by the Brockton Bay Wards, as well as having its very own private flying tank.

But that was okay, the mayhem wouldn’t be caused by a pair of super-villains. The mayhem would be caused by a pair of superheroes desperately trying to find the super-villains.

“It’s very simple, we’ll be playing the bully, and your brave heroes will be trying to stop us.” Leet’s voice said.

“They will also, of course, Fail.” Uber said.

“Everyone, stay calm, everything will be allright.” The teacher said.

He was right, of course, but the rest of the students didn’t believe him. They’d started panicking.

Several people ran for the door, Chris and Blake amongst them. Emma stayed nearby.

“Emma, I can take care of myself, go gettem.” I whispered to her. It was a nice gesture, really, but I didn’t need it. Partly because I had my own powers, partly because there wasn’t any danger.

“Okay…” she said.

A few seconds after she left, the speakers turned on again.

“Like all gamers, we know that a competitive game needs to be fair and balanced, and that Uber needs to be hit with a nerfhammer.” Leet’s voice spoke out.

“Therefore, we have several hints for the white hats.” Uber’s voice completed the sentence.

“So, first hint: The princess is not in the principal’s office, and we’re doing a feminist reinterpretation.” Leet’s voice said.

To be fair, I myself had no idea what that was supposed to mean, but it sounded like the sort of thing that tinfoils on PHO would go crazy about.

The teacher, in the meantime, had finally gotten control over the class back. About half of us were still in the room.

“It’s alright kids, just don’t do anything stupid and we’ll be all-right. Just stay inside, I’ll barricade the door and we’ll turn of the lights.”

*** Shadow Stalker ***

Gladly droned on and on and on. Congress this, politics that, international blablabla. It was all so fucking stupid, who even gave a shit. It wasn’t even like democracy meant anything, it was all corrupt anyway.

And who the fuck needed political power? Was the present somehow immune to endbringers? No he wasn’t. If someone like Heartbreaker wanted, he’d have all the power instead.

It was all some pathetic little popularity contest for idiots without any real power.

“Hey, Sophia?” Madison whispered.

Sophia looked at the little toadie. A spineless little idiot. But Emma liked her, and she was useful, she knew how to follow orders.

“What?”

“You see this?” she snuck her phone over, in full sight of Gladly. Usually, that’d be bad, but Gladly was a fucking idiot without a spine, how he’d gotten a place as a teacher, Sophia had no idea.

Sophia looked at the phone, the screen showed a twitter feed, a student from Arcadia talking about something.

“@Uber&Leet at #ArcadiaHigh. Just barely made it out. #Traumatized”

Those fucking cowards, they were too afraid to fight her so they chose a different school. Utterly pathetic.

“How ridiculous.” She said to Madison, handing the phone back.

“Yeah, too bad they didn’t come here; they could take down Taylor then.”

Taylor Hebert, the personification of everything that was wrong with the world. Crying at a hat’s drop, too weak to stand up for herself, to stand up for anything, event too weak to ask anyone for help. Sophia still couldn’t believe that Emma had once been friends with the girl.

Not that Emma didn’t have her problems, she could be vapid and shallow, but at least she tried to be better, she had a bite. And in a place like school, where beating people up would be a bad idea, having her around to keep the idiots down was useful.

Sophia held her hand up, trying to catch Gladly’s attention.

“Yes, Sophia?”

“Mr G. I have, you know… Can I go to the nurse?”

“Sure thing Sophia, just ask a friend about the homework for next week.”

“Thanks Mr G.”

Sophia waved to Madison, and gave a small kick to Taylor’s backpack when passing by her seat. She wouldn’t even try complaining, the spineless dolt. Even someone like Greg would protest when pushed far enough.

She turned around the corner, to a lesser used hallway, looking around for people, she shifted her way through the door leading to the fire escape. From there, she jumped upwards in her shadow-form. Now to get her stuff, hidden in the little structure that allowed for access to the roof, between two walls. Putting on her gear, she send a quick message to Emma. “Going to check out things @ Arcadia, can you cover during math?”

She didn’t even wait for the answer, Emma was reliable enough for this type of shit. Now, to make her way towards Arcadia and take down Uber and Leet, hopefully before the Wards were crying about their boo-boos and shit, probably followed by Armsmaster and fucking Dauntless.

She jumped, savouring the rush of the wind moving through her body. It was amazing, exhilarating. It almost made the drudgery and idiocy of the world tolerable.

Almost, but not quite.

*** Uber ***

“Dude…” Uber said.

“What?”Leet replied

“Which game are the clones for?”

“What clones?”

“You know… The ones attacking Arcadia High.”

Leet looked at him, shocked. Uber had been miffed that he hadn’t been informed, but he could appreciate a good clone/Evil twin plotline. This, though. He spoke again. “So, I’m guessing they’re not yours?”

“Yeah... I would’ve told you. Plus, I’m locked out of most wetware.”

That was also true. Hmm, what could it be then. Alternate universe? Unlikely, and cliché. A copycat? Flattering, but copycats usually didn’t pretend to be you. This could be bad. Their rep had never been good, but if some idiots got themselves arrested under their names. They would be the laughing-stock of the internet.

“We should go there. Put a stop to this.”

“Why” Leet asked. He was a good friend, but he could be such an idiot.

“Because they’re messing with our rep.”

“So? Most people already hate us anyway.”

“It’s not that Leet, think of it like that fucking E.T. game. One rotten apple can destroy everything. It could take years to recover if we let this slide. Quality control man.”

“I guess. But, I don’t have anything prepared you know.”

“Can’t we take some old shit with us? Just grab a few blasters and some armour we still have lying around?”

“I guess. But… It wouldn’t fit the theme. If we go out without a theme, our rep’s ruined.”

“But we’re going out because our rep will be ruined if we don’t. Come on, we’ll say it’s a ‘greatest hits’ or something, a video-game medley.”

“Yeah, but, like…. fine.”

*** Glory Girl ***

“Ha, found you!” Glory Girl screamed, kicking open the door of the boys room.

Inside, one of them perched on the sinks, were two guys engaged in a most nefarious act.

They were not, however, Uber and Leet.

“Ehmmm. Sorry for interrupting?”

Vicky grabbed the door from the floor, and attempted to place it back in the doorway. It didn’t fit, having been thrown of its hinges, so she just meekly floated away.

Where the hell were these guys? She raced through the corridors, over the heads of panicking students when she saw them. TThe principals office had been the first place she'd checked, but they hadn't been there. So, maybe there was more to it. There was that recent bathroom stuff in the news, with some big political stink somewhere. So she'd thought that maybe the 'princess' was in a boys bathroom, being all progressive about it. But the last three she'd checked had been empty, and this one, while busy, hadn't exactly been populated by incompetent supervillains. She flew forward, and rounded a corner to the next bathroom.

The world turned upside down and tumbled around.

“Watch where you’re going!” She shouted.

“No, you watch where you’re going.” Aegis’s voice countered. She looked up, watching from her position lodged in the wall, over Aegis’s body. Kid Win and the new girl, Argenta, in some sort of bodysuit. She didn’t have her armour with her, which sort of made sense. Carrying around a spare set of armour that massive wouldn’t make sense.

“So, you find them yet?” she asked.

“No, I think they have stealth tech or something.” Kid win answered.

Stealth-stuff, that would suck. But it made sense, Leet always had completely different inventions, stealth tech didn’t seem like too far a reach.

“You got any counters?” Victoria asked. He was the tinker, he probably knew what was going on.

“Not really, but sort of. We’re using Argenta’s electric tendrils and Gallant’s emotion-sight to try and pierce their stealth, but it hasn’t worked yet.”

Smart, good move, roughly what she would have proposed. Dean generally saw right through everything, including walls, and Argenta was really new, so any tech probably wouldn’t have taken her into account.

“Any reinforcements incoming? Or is this it?”

Aegis answered this time. “Two PRT squads have moved out, but they’re waiting for confirmation of actual risk before sending out the protectorate. How about on your side?”

“Sister’s in the nurses office. But everyone else is either at work or at university. Doesn’t seem like they’ll be joining us, unless this situation goes out of control.”

“So it’s just us then. It would really help if we figured out what they were here for, or how they’re controlling the sound system.”

“Wait, they didn’t go to the video room?”

“No, Triumphs half of the team went there and they said they didn’t know about anything, and had no control over the system.”

“Some sort of signal hijacking tech from Leet then? Have you tried Master/Stranger protocols with the PRT?” Victoria suggested.

If they could hijack the signal of the speaker system, they could’ve hijacked the connections on their phones as well.

“No, but good idea, Kid Win?” Aegis said, and Kid Win started fiddling with his phone, placing a call.

At least she’d managed to untangle herself from her mid-air collision with Aegis.

“Could be that this is all a distraction… what else could they be going for?” She said.

“Don’t know, some place close, if they want to keep us occupied?” Argenta kicked in. Her voice was high, and she seemed to be younger than her ample chest suggested.

And, did she recognize that voice? No, it would probably be better not to think that way.

“Probably… Maybe the bank or something?” she suggested.

“Also, has anyone tried checking their stream? Maybe that’ll give us some clue?”

“I tried” Kid Win said, “But they’re not online yet, so there’s either a delay programmed in, or they want to edit the footage before sending it out.”

At that point, the speakers turned on again.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, Welcome back to the Uber and Leet show. As it turns out, your heroes are very very bad at the game of Clue.” Uber’s voice boomed.

“So bad, in fact, that we have to give them another Clue. But this time, it comes at a cost.” Leet continued.

“So, you better hurry, because the clocks ticking. So here’s the hint; ‘What’s blue, and Large, and fits in your pocket.”

“But beware you don’t plug it into a wall socket.”

Victorias mind raced. Blue and large, but pocketsized. Some sort of gadget with an XL edition that wasn’t all that large? Something that didn’t work with normal chargers? How would that lead them to Uber and Leet. It just didn’t make any sense... Where were they?


	33. Chapter 33

Gadget 5.8

This… was starting to get out of hand.

There were cars outside, or rather, vans. PRT vans.

Maybe I should’ve lowered the delay on the final message…

Someone knocked on the door, and half the people in the room ducked under a table.

“Open the door please, we’re with the PRT.”

The teacher, happy that someone else who knew what to do was here, went and opened the door. On the other side stood a heavily armoured PRT agent of indeterminate gender with a big faceplate. Even if they were supposed to be the good guys, they looked a hell of a lot like cheap movie villains. Forgettable and vaguely menacing.

After a short hushed conversation with the teacher, the officer spoke to the class.

“Okay everyone, we’re evacuating just to be sure, please form up in an orderly line and follow us outside. Once outside, please stick together as a group, we need to make sure we have everyone out of the building.”

After that, people started lining up, and the PRT man said something to someone standing next to him. Another officer, this time one I was pretty srue was a woman, walked into the room and went for me.

How the fuck did they know, and how was I going to find my way out of this?

I couldn’t very well summon my tech here, everyone would know who I was, but, if the PRT already knew I’d been responsible…

“Hello miss, I reckon you’ll need some help evacuating right?” the woman said.

That, of course, was also a completely reasonable reason for them to want to talk to me…

“I can walk!” I replied, she’d hopefully leave me alone. The less I had to do with the PRT, the lower the chance of me being caught.

“Okay, that’s good to hear” She said cheerily. “I’ll be right here if something goes wrong okay?

She stood by my side when everyone had lined up, and guided me to the end of the line. The officer at the door took a quick look outside, and motioned for everyone to follow.

Everything went fine, until we hit the stairs.

Because of course we were taking the stairs.

“You all right miss?” the woman asked again, little busybody that she was.

“uh-huh.”

I started my journey down the stairs, slowly but steadily. Except after about five steps, the woman interrupted me again.

“I think this’ll be safer if I carry you, if that’s okay? You just hold your crutch, and I’ll make sure we make it down the steps.”

… It didn’t look like she was going to let me walk down the stairs, and everyone else was waiting for us. Watching us. Great…

I took hold of my crutch and got it over with. The PRT-woman was remarkably strong, and carried me down in a manner of seconds. Once downstairs, she decided to keep carrying me until we were outside. It was all very gallant, and also very galling.

Outside were a few groups of students with teacher, each about half the size they should’ve been. Apparently, people hadn’t been very serious about proper evacuation procedure. Something that was in my favour, because it meant they’d think one of the runners had done it. There were also two big vans with some sort of turret on top, and 4 PRT guys, or gals, or robots, I couldn’t really tell.

The woman holding me set me down, and started talking again. “Well, there you go, now, I have to go inside again, so see you later okay?”

“Sure…” I replied. I wasn’t sure if I really did want to see her again, but whatever.

I observed the mayhem… This had been a bit much…

I’d counted on the school maybe partially evacuating. I hadn’t really expected the PRT to show up.

Oh well, the last message would play in about five minutes, and my tech would disappear in about ten more, so, you know, no problem there.

All of a sudden, someone was talking to one of the PRT guys, one of the local heroes. His costume was red with racing stripes, so it had to be Velocity. I’d remembered him because his costume actually made sense. His power was going fast, his name was speed, and he was both red and had racing stripes.

Very much unlike, say, Armsmaster, who only had two arms, or Miss Militia, who was dressed as a professional soldier instead. That didn’t make any fucking sense, if she’s in the militia, wouldn’t she be wearing the outfit of the normal military instead? Not to mention Battery, who wasn’t dressed as a bunny at all.

After a few seconds of talking, he glanced our way, and then ran inside.

How fast could the guy run anyway? Could he run faster than sound? That could be cool. And what would happen if he was talking and also running towards you, would he just sound like a little girl because of the whole Doppler thing?

At that moment, the speakers turned on again, the way they were set up, we could hear them out here as well.

“Well everyone, it looks like your brave heroes have failed.” Leet’s voice boomed over the yard.

“So now for the punishment game.” Uber continued.

People started gasping about the whole punishment game deal.

“School destruction in 10” Leet said

“9” Uber continued

People started running away… were they actually convinced the school was going to explode?

“8”

“7”

“6”

“5”

“… Ehhh, just kidding” Leet’s voice said.

“… Leet’s just saying that because his bombs are the only thing he makes that don’t blow up.” Uber continued.

“…fuck off man.”

“Uber and Leet out.”

That was it, the final message.

I looked around, people had stopped running. Some of them were even laughing, sort of, when they thought no-one was looking.

*** Shadow Stalker ***

Sophia raced across the rooftops, stopping to check her phone every now and then. Twitter said Arcadia was getting evacuated, and that they hadn’t found Uber and Leet yet.

Hilarious, all the wards in one school and they can’t fucking catch a pair of idiots. No worries though, Shadow Stalker was on the case.

She started running again, and got two roofs further when she noticed someone standing on the next roof, waiting for her.

Dauntless. Again. Every fucking time. Had it been Assault, or Militia, or even fucking Armsmaster, she could’ve just ignored them. Nothing they could do against her.

Dauntless could fly. And he had that fucking electro-spear. It was fucking stupid, but Sophia knew not to antagonize him. They said he could be triumvirate level someday. She really didn’t want to fuck with that. And hey, even Lions were afraid of snakes, or something. Probably, Sophia had never paid much attention to anything but the good shit in those documentaries.

He was just standing there, that stupid smirk on his face. Waiting. Being an asshole.

Sophia landed on the building Dauntless was on, and stopped.

“Sup Shadow Stalker?” he asked, his hair flowing in the wind beneath his pretentious little golden helmet.

She thought about it for a second… if she told him where she was going, he’d be a pain in the ass about it. All “whawha its too dangerous whawhawha”. Pathetic, she was strong, not like the fucking wards who couldn’t even catch two idiots.

“Just, you know, patrolling.”

Dauntless held his arm out in front of him, making an entire show of looking at what Sophia assumed was his watch.

“Are you sure? I mean, it’s the middle of the day, and you usually run around in the evening instead…”

“… shut up…”

But Dauntless didn’t listen, instead, he continued. “In fact, if I were to make a guess, I’d say that right now is about the time that you should be in school.”

“…”

“Stalker… you know you can tell me if there’s problems at school.”

Sophia nodded. This whole thing again. Dauntless pretending to be the fucking nice guy. Why he did that, she had no idea, dude could taze people from a city-block away, it wasn’t like he needed to suck up to anyone, least of all her.

With people in school, she could understand. She was at the top, people sucked up to her and Emma would go easy on her, to get a place amongst their inner circle or some shit. Sophia left most of that stuff to Emma. And Emma? Well that was really obvious, Emma knew she was a cape, a parahuman, it was only logical she’d be as nice as possible.

But Dauntless was also a cape, and he was clearly a lot stronger than she was, at least in powers. In a normal fight, Sophia was pretty sure she could win.

So why was he trying to suck up to her…

“s’not school…”

Dauntless had half a smile on his face.

“So if there’s no problem at school, I guess you’re after the dynamic duo?”

Fuck… fucking fucker… how had he known…

“…no”

He didn’t buy it. Of course he didn’t buy it; his power let him give his stuff powers. He probably had a lie-detector or something in his helmet.

“Because, you know, if you were, I could use some help.”

“The fuck does that mean?”

“I’m here to intercept them if they try to escape, and I could use your help.

Interception… that meant letting other idiots fight first.

On the other hand, if the wards failed, and she succeeded, that would be great wouldn’t it. She started smiling, and nodded towards Dauntless.

Dauntless grabbed around in his pocket for something, found it, and then threw it at her.

She looked at it, and back at Dauntless.

“Spare earpiece, makes it easier to talk, so, how about you take the western side, and I take the east? Call each other the moment we see something?”

“… Okay…”

Sophia put in the earpiece, and started running in the direction Dauntless had pointed at, West of Arcadia.

One she was two roofs over, her earpiece went of.

“Testes testes one two three.”

Fucking Dauntles…

“You should see a fucking doctor about that.” She replied.

Dauntless didn’t answer.

Until he did.

“Uhmm, Stalker, if you want to say something you have to press it twice to turn on the receiver.”

She shifted back to her normal state. Electronics in her shadow-state were weird. If she carried them with her, like her phone, or this earpiece, they sometimes even kept working. But if she touched them in her shadow state while they were normal? Zap.

She clicked the earpiece twice.

“That’s fucking stupid, why can’t it just work?”

He was silent for a second or two.

“So you can talk about annoying co-workers behind their backs?”

“… fucking stupid…”

“You do actually have to turn it off again.”

She clicked her earpiece again, hopefully turning the receiver off.

Her phone buzzed with a message, and she took a second to see what it was.

A notification.

Uber and Leet had gone online.

About fucking time.

She clicked the earbud again.

“This working?”

“Loud and clear” Dauntless replied.

“They just went online”

“Got it, I’ll make sure someone’s on it.”

His voice suddenly stopped, and Sophia rushed forward to the next building. After about half a minute, Dauntless’s voice returned.

“Stalker?”

“yeah?”

“Good thinking, tracking their stream.”

She was silent for a bit, enjoying the air rushing through her body.

… Fucking Dauntless…

She landed again, her heart rushing into action, blood pumping through her veins, slightly faster than normal.

She wondered why Uber and Leet had only gone online now, instead of when they started. She could start up their stream, but, she couldn’t really watch it when in her shadow-state.

“From what I’m told, the attack was fake, and they’re out here to deal with the faker.” Dauntless said.

“The fuck are they then?”

“Not sure yet, but they seem to be in the vicinity. Velocity’s checking the streets and alleys, so we’ll stay on the roof.”

“Okay…”

She looked around. If she were a pair of utterly pathetic idiots, where would she be? Somewhere with a good camera angle, except they had their flying thing, so they needed to be able to stand in front of the school so it’d be in the background of the shot.

Except Dauntless said he didn’t know where they were, so maybe the school wasn’t in the image. In that case, they’re want a location that was close, but from where you couldn’t see the school.

She looked around, and found a probable location. A tall building with a medium-sized maintenance building on top, behind which they could stand.

As good a place as any. She rushed forward, shifting only to add more speed to her mad dash.

The building had an external fire escape. Something she could use. She jumped to it, and stopped in her tracks. Then, she jumped upwards, shifting states the moment she stopped touching the ground.

It was weird, her power, forces were weird, and inconsistent. She’d paid attention during the science class, and it just didn’t make sense. The big thing was the whole Force=mass*acceleration thing. If she jumped, she had an amount of force. Then, if she went shadow-state, she’d have lower mass, so she would go faster, right? Or was that speed instead of acceleration? Anyway, what seemed to actually happen, was that she kept her speed from the initial moment. Even gravity had a lower effect on her. It was weird, but useful. Meant she could do this, just fly upwards pushing of against the ground every now and then.

If only she could figure out how to do the whole wall-jumping/walking/running thing. That stuff looked fucking awesome but was basically impossible, probably.

She reached the top of the building, and jumped on top of the small building on top of the roof, hiding between the different satellite dishes, staying in her shadow-state, careful not to touch anything electronic. She snuck forward, and saw them. Standing beneath her.

They weren’t in costume. Or rather, they were, but the costumes didn’t match. Leet had some sort of fire-gauntlet thing from Mario, some sort of glowing energy-based jetpack, a weird medieval style helmet, and metal boots. On second thought, she recognized those boots, they were the ones you head to wear in the stupid fucking underwater temple in Zelda. These assholes couldn’t even make one of the cool items, like the hookshot. Fucking idiots.

Uber, in the meantime, had a fucking lightsaber, and a more normal jetpack that looked like it worked by shooting fire from the back. He had the helmet Metroid wore. Or whatever she was called, the Metroid chick.

He also had some other shit on his belt, and pants with way too many zippers and belts.

It looked fucking stupid.

It also looked heavily armed.

Very heavily armed…

She turned on her earpiece by double-tapping, feeding Dauntless an audio-feed.

“So, because this fucking asshole thinks he can outdo us. We are going to take them the fuck down!” Uber said. He was angry, because some itty bitty school-kid had stolen his schtick.

“I take it this means you found them?” Dauntless asked.

Now, how to inform him of her location without giving away the surprise to the idiots below her.

She snuck back to the other side of the maze of electrical stuff on the roof she was standing on, and looked for Dauntless in the sky.

“… they’re dressed up all fucking weird…”

“The random assortment of weaponry? I’d heard. Where are you right now?”

“Top of a big building, you’re flying right in front of me.”

“Stalker, could you please tell me where you are in relation to me?”

Fucking idiot… she’d just…

“I just fucking told you” she whispered, slightly louder than strictly wise, hopefully, they hadn’t heard.

“Sorry, I mean the other way around. I am right in front of you, but where are you for me? To the left, the right? Do you know how clock-face directions work?”

She thought about it for a second, of course he didn’t just say what he fucking meant…

“I’m like, ten past half? Big building with a second thing on the roof, slightly below you.”

Dauntless turned in mid-air, and looked in her direction. She held her hand up to wave, and he waved back.

She continued. “They’re on the other side of this thing.”

“Got it,” he replied. “Good work Stalker, well done.”

Stupid, it was just a fucking scouting thing. the fucking wards probably ate that shit, but she wouldn’t… Dauntless was just stupid…

“I just informed headquarters, so we can expect backup from Aegis and probably Glory-Girl, but I don’t think we need to wait for them since we still have the element of surprise.”

Of course, those fucking gloryhogs wanted to steal her fucking fight…

“okay…”

“So, I’ll fly around, come up from below them, and strike as soon as I reach the edge of the roof. Then, you sneak in and take out Leet before he can react. Once the Tinker’s out, we’ll deal with Uber together. And remember Stalker, be careful with your crossbow.”

“Okay..”

“Lets do this together Stalker!” he shouted enthusiastically.

Sophia went back to her perch, spying on the two. They were talking about respect and stuff like that, and she was pretty sure they were still talking to the camera because they weren’t quite sure what else to do. They probably had no idea who was responsible for whatever had happened at Arcadia.

Dauntless flew upwards, his items glowing white with power, his head covered by his golden helmet. She had to admit, it did look kinda cool. Not as cool as her outfit, but whatever.

His spear struck out, white lightning flashing forwards and striking the area around Uber and Leet. Uber was fast though, as was their little floating drone orb thing. the golden snitch people on the internet called it. Uber had rolled to the side, and grabbed something from his pockets she couldn’t see. She couldn’t see it, because she was rushing for Leet with his stupid fucking boots. He’d been taken by surprise and zapped, this would be easy.

Except once she was halfway to him, he suddenly turned around and threw a fireball from his gauntlet.

She went shadow, right through the fire. The air was warm, but that wasn’t really a problem. She just needed to make sure that it was all through her when she turned back to normal. She’d shifted in the middle of a hot ash cloud once by accident. The pain had immediately brought her back into her shadow-state.

She swung her feat low, aiming for the knees, just above his metal boots. She started shifting back to normal just in time to hit, but he’d brought his leg up fast enough that she’d hit the solid steel of the boot. It was supposed to be cloth at the top, but they were cheating assholes.

She delayed her shift, and her leg went right through Leet’s metal boot, turning real only when it smashed into his other knee.

“Fucking bitch!” he shouted, throwing fireballs just in front of her. She shifted back to her shadowstate, and he kept up the barrage, hitting exactly where she wanted to go every single time.

That and the voice told her she’d made a mistake.

She’d expected Uber to have the lightsaber, because Uber was the better of the two, and lightsabers were fucking awesome. She also expected Uber to be the one that actually dodged Dauntless’s strike.

Wrong on both accounts, she was fighting Uber right now. Fuck.

She couldn’t turn back to normal, as she couldn’t escape his fireballs. And she couldn’t go through him, she didn’t trust the jetpack, since it was obviously electrical.

But he didn’t know that.

As she heard the lightning of Dauntless’s spear crackle behind her, she bum rushed Uber in her shadow state.

As she expected, before she’d even reached him, he was starting to turn around, ready for her to appear there.

Instead, she shifted back to normal and crashed into him.

But instead of falling down, he just sort of floated backwards, and she with him. It was like he had no weight…

The jetpack…

With one hand, she grabbed one of the metal horn thingies on Ubers helmet, with the other, she grasped for something to tear of. A strap from his jetpack or his gauntlet, anything. Fucking tinkers.

Uber, in the meantime, had half turned around, and grasped her arm instead. Not with the gauntleted hand, she’d managed to evade that one, but the unarmed one.

Sophia tried to kick him in the knee again, but found that he was well and truly floating. And, grabbing each other as they were, so was she.

He hadn’t been standing on the roof after she’d kicked his knee into the next month, he’d just been floating with his feet touching the ground.

And now, due to the energy of her charge, they were floating together. Going towards the side of the roof at a slow but steady pace.

*** Uber ***

Leet was as good as down, anyone could see that, even the Snitch. So instead, it had started focusing on him and Shadow Stalker…

Since when did Shadow Stalker team up with Dauntless? And where the fuck had Dauntless learned how to do a surprise attack. He wasn’t the most subtle of people.

And now his fucking knee hurt, probably broken from the fourteen year old slamming into it from the inside with her full body-weight.

But he almost had her. She was probably thinking he couldn’t hit her with his gauntleted right hand, that that was why he’d only used his left to grab hold of her.

Well, she was wrong, And though her pawing at his gear was annoying, it could hold up for a couple of seconds.

Once they were over the side of the roof, he’d grasp her with the fire gauntlet. She’d turn to her shadow-state to escape, lose her hold on him, and fall down to the ground. She’d probably survive, but it’d take her a long time until she was up again, and he’d be long gone by that time.

He checked himself in third-person perspective from the Snitch’s eyes. One of the functionalities of this helmet, Dark Souls was in Third-Person after all.

The girl was still angrily sticking to him. Clearly visible to the camera. Annoying, because everyone online would say that he just loved to have fourteen-year-olds, pawing at him. That was the problem with teenage vigilantes. If you won, people said you were overly brutal, and they’d come down on you. If you lost, people would laugh at you. And even though Shadow Stalker wasn’t that famous, she was on camera right now.

No, better to just targets the dregs of society, the idiots no-one cared about. And hey, if she died from the fall, it would be too far down to be clearly visible in the shot. Most people never read the article, so if it wasn’t on tape, it was like it hadn’t happened.

Now, how to take down Dauntless. That was far more problematic. Leet’s lightsaber could only absorb and reflect so much energy, and he was pretty sure the different visors from the helmet wouldn’t work here.

He shouldn’t have let Leet grab the lightsaber, he was far more effective with it himself.

But then, that was the case for every piece of gear wasn’t it.

Shadow Stalker was shouting something obscene at him. It didn’t really bother him. It wasn’t like their show was very PG, and he’d heard far worse online.

They went over the edge of the roof, Shadow Stalker still holding on to his helmet, and him grabbing hold of her other arm now. Wrestling like this was easy, even in zero-G, it was still the same type of bodies, the same applicable techniques. He turned her wrist, and she squirmed in just the right way for him to reach around with his gauntlet, grabbing her leg with the metal monstrosity, he started heating it up.

*** ??? ***

The girl gave a shout, and turned back into her Breaker-state, falling out of the man’s grasp. Then, she made a rather intriguing movement. She shifted back to normal, with her right hand grabbing something from her back. In one graceful movement, she shot her crossbow at a moving target while falling.

She hit the man’s jetpack, which wasn’t something his skillset had prepared him for. That made sense if she was right about his powers. It sputtered, and he started falling as well.

Having started falling about a second earlier, the girl turned back into her breaker state, slowing the acceleration of her fall. When the man had almost caught up, she shifted back, holding her leg upwards to catch him in his weak spot.

Sloppy, she would have been better served by taking out either the man’s gauntleted limb or his other knee. Nonetheless, it seemed to work, and the girl turned to shadow again, reappearing on the other side of her opponent, who had fallen through her.

She seemed to be in pain. A weakness to going through people? Some sort of Manton effect? No, she seemed to be perfectly fine with the legs. Something in the equipment then? A tinker-tech counter? No they obviously hadn’t expected her, so it was something more universal. A material her state didn’t work with properly? Or maybe the electrical charge of the tech?

Nonetheless, the girl pulled through and oriented herself in her fall, getting ready to dodge anything the man shot at her with his gauntlet.

Instead, the man activated some of his technology in an expert manner. A fluid movement, he suddenly got sucked towards the wall of the building they were falling of, and his boots attached themselves to the side of the building, leaving a scar in the brickwork above the place where he came to rest.

It was such a shame… His movements looked good, fluid. But when she observed further, they were too good, too perfect, mechanical. It missed exactly that which made martial arts an art. He had gotten them from his powers, and lacked experience. In many cases, his near-endless skillset could compensate, but this situation was pretty much unique, not something he’d already loaded into his brain with his power. As such, the girl had an advantage. She’d pounded the rhythm of combat into her body, and while she might be sloppy, her movements were instinctual. A predator, taking down a Karate-Kid that learned everything he knew from Mister Miyagi’s book. The moment things went off the expected path, she’d won.

The girl twisted her cape one way, and turned partially into her breaker form, the effect having a hard time reaching the end of her cape. She used this to induce a horizontal movement into her fall.

Left leg first, she was aiming for the man’s torso. Hoping that the downward force would throw him from the wall of the building. Or was she? The way she held her cape now that she had already changed the direction of her descent, she had a plan.

The man shot another fireball upwards, but she shifted her entire body into the shadow-state again.

Except for her cape, which fluttered a bit behind her in an arc, the end of it caught in one of her hands. The girl crashed through the male cape in her shadow form, evidently she thought that the benefits outweighed the risk she was taking with her weakness to his gear.

She cried out while going through him, a movement of her body only slightly visible in her shadow-state. She tried to hide it, but wasn’t very good at it. That needed work, she shouldn’t just give away hear weaknesses that easily.

But, once her body was through, she partially went out of her shadow-state again. It was obviously not an entirely binary switch.

The cloak pulled the man down, all the while shifting through him. In the meantime, the girl had used the torque provided by her cape being inside the guy and apparently applying forces, to shift her body again. She shifted herself upside down, and kicked the man in the head with semi-translucent legs. They both started tumbling, rotating in their fall at a velocity too high for the man’s tinkertech boots to properly work again.

The man started screaming, Logical, they were already three-quarters down, but the fall would probably still be lethal, especially with the way he was spinning. There were techniques he could use to reduce the damage from falling, but he still had the girl to deal with.

That’s when the girl also looked down, and started panicking.

Sloppy, she should’ve known what would happen if they fought while falling.

In her panick, she grabbed hold of the man who had been her enemy, who started struggling against her, now unable to properly prepare for the fall.

About a half-second before hitting the floor, she shunted the both of them into her shadow-state

Something went wrong, her power hadn’t been intended for this. When they hit the ground, the two shadows slightly dispersed. And then came back together at some distance from each other.

The girl was breathing heavily, strained. A standard thing from overusing breaker-states, similar to thinker-headaches. Shortness of breath, followed by massive muscle cramps. She’d survive, but she was out of the fight.

The man however, could still move, although strained. Had he not been hit by the feedback from the power? No, he probably just dealt with it better because of one of his acquired techniques.

He stood up, and started walking towards the girl, visibly straining with every step. His need for vengeance obviously outweighing his desire to look good in front of the camera.

He’d taken four steps when the lightning-chucker crashed into him from above. The force threw away the drone that had been filming everything. It was the end of the show. Watching the young vigilante fight had been… interesting. Intriguing, intoxicating.

 

*** Gadget ***

Everyone ran for the crash site, including Glory Girl, who’d just exited the building.

There’d been an actual Uber and Leet fight, even if the whole attack had been faked.

This was turning out way better than I’d expected. Sure, it’d been a little bit of an over-reaction from everyone, but it’d been fun.

And while everyone ran for the place where lightning-man had crashed down, I could investigate something that no-one else seemed to be paying attention to.

If my eyes hadn’t betrayed me, it’d be somewhere around here.

And then I saw it, in a corner, no bigger than a basketball.

Problem was, it was probably filled with trackers and shit.

I might be able to take it apart here, take out the trackers, grab the individual components.

But I only had one hand available, and there were lots of people around, including PRT people and heroes who probably wanted their hands on this thing. And If I started working, they’d find the stuff I’d left behind.

No, instead, I’d simply have to analyse it in the back of my head. Plus, the thing was sturdy, having gone through all of their stunts so far. It didn’t look like it had any big breaks in it or anything, it was just a little beat up. Given how bad Leet reportedly was with repairing stuff.

I touched it, and extended my power.

…

What the hell where those noises coming out of my mouth… and why did this feel so good? I could just feel it, right there in the back of my head. The video-equipment inside it was pretty much normal, as was the sender and receiver, but the rest….

Oooh thinking about that felt good. The golden outside… it was some sort of semi-self-repairing active camouflage thing... Had I been a few minuts later, it would’ve been invisible.

And the anti-grav… oh my... I hadn’t expected it, but Leet really did know how to make a girl happy.

I had to get my hands on more tinkertech...


	34. Chapter 34

Chapter 5.9  
Absolutely everything hurt, her heart was pounding, and she had to gasp for air.

That had not been a good idea.

That had, in fact, been a very bad idea

Why the fuck had she just saved Uber…

Why did everything hurt so fucking bad…

Then Sophia remembered… Because that fucking drone had been viewing them, and if she hadn’t helped, it would’ve somehow been her fault that Uber was a pancake…

She heard a few footsteps, followed by a massive crash of lightning. Trying to move her head in order to see, she decided that it hurt just a little too much.

Breathe in, and out. In, and out. Eventually, her lungs had gotten themselves under control.

Air was always the problem is something went wrong with her power. The wind, moving about, even just normal movement of air, made sure that her body could breathe even in her Shadow State. But, if something went wrong, say, something big hit her in that state, or someone uses something like pepperspray, it would interfere with that. Worst case scenario, similar to what seemed to have happened here. She’d be forced back into her normal state to breathe.

She raised her head, checking that the black hockey-mask was still in place.

It was, her identity was safe for now. Looking around, she saw Dauntless putting a completely beaten up Uber in chains. The fucking idiot was crying that his wounds hurt, utterly pathetic.

Behind Dauntless, she saw a whole lot of people approaching to watch. Mostly high-schoolers, the idiots that had been so fucking afraid of Uber and Leet, finally finding the courage to come out and watch.

She sat up, her body only barely obeying her commands, and spotted a few PRT agents. They were running towards Dauntless, and taking over for him. Dauntless, in the meantime, was walking towards her, smiling.

He held out a hand, offering to help her stand up. “Well done Stalker, I told you, we make a great team.”

Sophia stood up, studiously trying to ignore the hand in front of her. She wasn’t weak, she didn’t need his help.

Before she knew it, the hand had been slung across her shoulders instead. With it, Dauntless pointed to a news van that was standing in front of the school, a camera-man, a sound guy and a spunky blonde reporter running towards them from the van.

“Well, let’s say hello to the press.” Dauntless said, subtly pushing Shadow Stalker with one hand, the other holding his lightning spear.

Sophia fought through the pain in her legs, she wasn’t weak, she could still stand and walk forwards.

She just didn’t want to talk to some fucking idiot from the fucking news channel. She’d probably ask some retarded questions about whether or not it was scary or not and something about shoe-shopping. Idiots always talked about shoe shopping, even Emma wasn’t safe from that affliction.

Shoes were for kicking people. As long as they had steel toes, they were good shoes.

And they were also for track. Shoe shopping for her running was actually fun, just stupid expensive and not what Emma meant when she said she wanted to go shoe-shopping.

How the fuck did you fight in heels anyway?

“Hello Rosette” Dauntless said to the news girl. She was tall, big breasted, probably not very intelligent, had some sort of “I’m a soccer mom but also a slut” haircut, and was blushing.

Fucking bitch.

The bitch gave a small wave and turned to the camera.

“Good afternoon everyone. We are here near Arcadia high which has just recovered from a terrible attack by the supervillain duo of Uber & Leet, a pair of criminals most famous for making videos of their criminal activities and putting them on the internet, in a new fad called ‘streaming’. We are here with Brockton Bays very own Dauntless, who has just apprehended one of the criminals. Dauntless, what can you tell us about the events of today?”

Dauntless, apparently utterly okay with the strange way of holding a conversation, answered the woman’s question, his arm still wrapped about Sophia’s body in a way that was probably supposed to suggest camaraderie or some such shit.

“Good afternoon Rosette, and good afternoon Brockton Bay” he said, smiling for the camera.

“I can tell you that the supervillains Uber and Leet attacked the local high school in a terrible plot, foiled only by the incompetence of their bomb-making. Luckily, I was able to intercept them as they made their escape, and stop Uber in his tracks.”

Why the fuck was he lying? That wasn’t what had happened. It wasn’t even close at all. Was he just telling the story in such a way that it made him look better?

No, more logically, he knew she didn’t like shit like this, all the fucking attention from a bunch of fucking idiots, so he was taking all the attention.

“Oh my, that sounds very scary. Can you tell us how you did so?”

“Well, I figured out where they were hiding, on top of this building here, and I flew up and surprised them with my spear. Leet managed to get away with his jetpack, but Uber’s jetpack malfunctioned, and he crashed to the ground, and I managed to stop him before he was able to escape.”

“You heard it people, it’s all very exciting in this city full of capes” the bitch said to the camera, talking in a voice so high it sounded like a chipmunk. She continued: “And what about this young lady next to you, is she a new ward?”

Sophia and Dauntless started talking at the same time

“Fuck no!/No, she’s just a friend of sorts.”

Ignoring her, the fucking bitch replied to Dauntless.

“Oh, how do you know each other, and did she help you today?”

“How we know each other? I ran into her on patrol, we had a little chat, exchanged some heroic banter, you know, the works.”

The idiot little Chihuahua in human form turned her way, and yapped again: “Oh, so you’re a vigilante miss? Can our viewers have your name.”

The camera turned, and was also aimed at her now, and the sound guy had a big flying microphone hovering above her hands. Why the fuck was it called a microphone if they were so big… It was so fucking stupid.

People in the audience had also turned their attention towards her, the onlooking students trying to make pictures with their fucking little smartphones. Behind the massive crowd, she could see some of the fucking wards, including electro-bitch, as well as the new New Wave chick, Glory Girl.

“ I gotta get back to school.” She said, turning to her shadow form. The crowd gasped, amazed at just a bit of her powers. Bunch of fucking sheep.

Dauntless didn’t stop her, and barely missed a beat before talking to the camera again.

“Well, as you see, even for a vigilante like Shadow-Stalker, school is important kids!”

 

*** Glory Girl ***

A prank.

A fucking prank.

She’d been flying through the school, ripping locked doors out of their sockets to check behind them, and it’d been a fucking prank,

Absolutely amazing! Now only to find the person responsible and beat him up.

Then, Vicky heard a crash from outside. Accelerating quickly, she soared to a half-open window, and tried to open it.

It was locked in its half-open state, probably to prevent some idiotic teenager from doing exactly what she was about to do.

On one hand, it would be undue collateral damage if she smashed the lock for no reason.

On the other hand, what if she held back, flew down the big sets of stairs, to the front entrance, and then outside, only to be too late?

Vicky flew through the window, towards the front of the school, trying to figure out what that noise had been.

A crowd had gathered, and a few of the other wards, the ones that had already been outside after it’d become clear this was all a prank, were standing outside. She flew towards them as they approached the commotion.

“Well, that was certainly something” she said, as Aegis approached her. “Any idea what happened here?”

“Well, the press is already talking to Dauntless, and that’s uber lying on the ground.” He replied.

Argenta spoke up in her squeaky little voice. “Who’s the girl?”

Aegis looked around, searching for someone, eventually finding what he was looking for when looking back at the school. Triumph was only just leaving the building.

“A vigilante that calls herself Shadow Stalker. Tends to run around at night and flee the moment she sees someone. I heard Dauntless has a chat with her every now and then.”

Wait, that was Shadow Stalker? Victoria had heard about her, mostly when beating up criminals. Apparently, most of them weren’t even sure whether or not Stalker really existed, or was even a cape. She just dropped in, beat someone up, and disappeared into the shadows, using a crossbow every now and then when things got hairy.

After the journalist had asked her a question, the girl ran, turning into her breaker form.

Victoria turned around, seeing Dean and the others finally catching up. “I’mma go chat with her, see you guys later.” She said, before flying after Stalker. Fifteen seconds later, she got a message, and checked her phone. It was from Dean. “Don’t get yourself shot.”

The loveable idiot worried too much. She was invincible.

Then, she saw a shadow moving in the corner of her eye, on one of the buildings beneath her. That’d probably been Stalker. She set off on an interception course. Aiming for a building where Shadow Stalker was about to pass by.

Knee first, one hand on the floor, Victoria thought this was going to be amazing.

Right up to the point where her face hit the roof of the building.

“Fucking superhero landings…”

She heard footsteps approaching. Stalker…

They stopped for about half a second, just in front of her.

“The fuck’s your problem?”

“Give me a break all right, this three-point landing is actually quite hard!”

“Whatever, just leave me alone.” The voice replied, before leaving again. If she wanted to have a chat with Shadow Stalker, she'd have to try another day.

But first, to figure out how to properly do an awesome superhero landing.

 

*** Gadget ***

The rest of the day, there was no school.

Neither was there any homework.

But I still had a problem.

Leet’s tech was absolutely awesome.

It was also a piece of shit that didn’t make any sense.

I could understand the principle behind it, why what part was made in what way, but it just wasn’t logical.

I’d even drawn it out, seeing what I was missing, but I couldn’t help but come to my conclusion.

The Snitch could basically explode at any moment. Or fry itself, or overheat, or, somehow, underheat.

A single screw turned slightly too far, a wire with a slightly higher resistance, and it’d all go wrong.

Well, at least it explained why his stuff kept exploding. But I’d need to make some changes to the design if I wanted to use any of it.

The easiest was probably the anti-gravity part. Or, rather, the mass-canceler. It did some weird shit to reduce the weight to roughly nothing, meaning a very small engine could propel it about.

It wouldn’t help me make gravity my bitch, but It’d get me closer.

Problem? It needed to go around the thing it was cancelling the mass of.

Unless I wanted to run around in a giant hamster ball, which, needless to say, would be kind of fun but entirely inappropriate for stealth of any kind.

No, instead, it was probably best to do something with just my torso. That’d be about 50% of the weight, meaning I’d be able to jump twice as high.

Combine that with my idea for a grappling hook, and I’d get some major mobility

Just needed some time and space to really start tinkering.

For space, I could probably find something in an abandoned building something, that was the great thing about Brockton Bay, unlike my hometown, half the buildings in the poor part of town were empty.

Even better, I could figure out some place in the boat graveyard, where the local dockworkers regularly proved they were too lazy to dig a grave for the boats in the graveyard.

Why even call it a graveyard if there aren’t any graves? It was about as stupid as the idea of elephant graveyards was, they didn’t bury their dead either.

So, what kind of stuff would I need to build the kind of stuff I needed? The first one, space, would work. Tools? I had enough tools and shit for however long I wanted to work, if they broke, I could just spawn in new stuff. Unless I needed something I hadn’t already gotten from the hardware store.

So I’d need raw materials to work with. And electrical components if I wanted to build something smart. So some sort of processor I could rebuild to create a control mechanism for the grappling hook, plus a dense electrical power source. And some sort of cable.

I looked at my scarf… I’d tried absorbing it, but that hadn’t worked, which was weird. Sure, it was big, but only in two dimensions. All folded up, I could definitely grab something similar in size.

Was it something about how it’d been made? Paige probably used her power to make it, so it’d make sense.

Or, more philosophically speaking, what if the limitation had something to do with the intended state of the item? A scarf wasn’t used all rolled up, so maybe it counted as too big? In that case, I’d need to make sure that the rope I used was counted in a coiled state. Some sort of mechanism where it wouldn’t uncoil unless a button was pressed after summoning it perhaps? Powers were weird.

Anyway, that meant I wouldn’t be able to use the material the scarf was made it for my rope.

But I wouldn’t weigh all that much if I lost half my mass, so the rope wouldn’t have to be ridiculously strong. I could probably just splice something together from reclaimed iron from the boats.

So, then, what else… Some sort of cloth and a sewing machine to make the vest itself. It would probably be too big to absorb, so I’d need to make sure that the main components could work in some sort of plug-in fashion.

It would probably be possible to add in something else as well, another option. But that would come later.

So a sewing machine… wouldn’t be too expensive. Probably.

And cloth, I’d need good cloth, could probably buy that from the same store as the sewing machine.

The only remaining thing was the rare earth metals required for some of the stuff that would do the actual work. Where the fuck was I going to find some Iridium this time of year, Wallmart?

Probably not.

So the hard stuff would be good batteries, or just power sources really, and some rare metals.

I could probably create a custom power-source, but it’d add quite a bit of time to the process.

Think Sely, where could I get my hands on this stuff.

Crowdsourcing, that was the answer of course.

I looked at the clock. It was about 4, and dad had send me a message that something had come up at work, and he’d be late. I could make my way to the library, set up a few proxies to make myself virtually untraceable, which was a very nice pun, and just crowd-source my questions.

*** Director Piggot ***

Parahumans were impossible. Not just because they did stuff that was, quite literally, impossible, but more in the personality sense.

First, a message had come in that Uber and Leet were attacking the high-school where the majority of the wards were stationed.

Then, a message had come in that the attack had been a hoax.

Then, a third message had arrived in the high-priority queue, detailing how Uber and Leet were probably going to attack Arcadia in retaliation for the hoax.

And instead of just solving the problem by arresting the duo, Dauntless had decided that talking to the press was more important, and had helped an absolutely absurd version of events into the world.

And that was just the latest headache. The last two weeks, she’d had to deal with Armsmaster deciding that he was a family man and needed time off every single evening, she’d had to deal with a new ward that had decided that locking the Youth Guard representative in her room would be an absolutely great idea, and one of the few sane members of her team had decided that adopting a known killer was a great idea.

Worst thing was, the Youth Guard had almost removed its local representative, but had suddenly claimed that more oversight was obviously necessary now.

And the fucking police chief of all people had talked everyone into accepting Batteries plan.

She could understand the basic idea behind it. Parahuman law was a messy thing, with so many contradictions and unsolved problems, all around different powers with different consequences, that a good lawyer was quite often able to somehow get a client out of a heavy sentence.

Police dogs however, those were a well-known quantity with well-established legislation and lots of legal precedent.

None of those laws stated that the dog in question couldn’t also be nine feet tall monstrosities that could probably smell a drug-dealer from three blocks away.

So now her frustrations were doubled because she had to do all her work while hearing a bunch of barking dogs in the background, getting used to being transformed into mutant hellbeasts.

At least she could be happy that the girl had stopped trying to punch everyone.

It would still be a PR nightmare. But she could probably shove that problem to someone else’s plate, that was one of the few boons of being the director.

The way her paperwork was divided, there were five big piles in front of her. On the left were all the documents regarding the PRT, the Protectorate and the Wards. Requests for special gear, testing facilities, training, upkeep, research teams, it seemed like it would never end.

Next to that, was her pile of stuff on the Empire, probably Brockton Bay’s most damaging element. Sure, the other gangs weren’t good for the city either, but being the Nazi capital of the country gave a city a bad reputation. The real problem, however, was that there were so damn many of them, and that they rotated so quickly. There were a few mainstays, like Kaiser himself, Purity and Krieg, but the rest of the roster kept changing. Hookwolf sadly looked like he’d be staying for a while, bloodthirsty maniac that he was, and that probably meant Stormtiger and Cricket as well. Mostly, the pile dealt with reports about hate-crimes, skinhead gathering locations, and an ever expanding list of capes who were flagged as possibly being neo-Nazi sympathizers, who could very well show up in Brockton Bay.

The middle pile dealt with Lung and the ABB. It wasn’t as large as they wanted it to be. Piggot thought the reason behind this was that people didn’t expect the Protectorate to be able to do anything anyway. There were some files about possible moves to rein in his gang recruitment, as well as a few reports on his more major criminal activities, most of it having to do with human smuggling, and brothels filled with imported flesh that wasn’t working there entirely willingly. 

It bothered her, the fact that people didn’t trust the PRT, but she understood it. It hadn’t been that long ago that Lung had defeated the entire Protectorate on his own.

If only her requests for help from the triumvirate ever came through…

The fourth pile dealt with her smaller worries. The Merchants were annoying, but their parahuman presence was less than spectacular. For the most part, the cops could deal with them. It also contained a few papers on New Wave, requests for co-operative training, complaints about collateral damage, that sort of thing, as well as Faultline’s crew, although Piggot was willing to let them be as long as they didn’t practice their craft in her city. If another department wanted to take them down, they could send the necessary manpower over. Then there were the few reports about other possible gangs and teams, mostly rumour and hearsay. People thought anyone with a weapon was a supervillain these days.

The last pile was the least important, and the hardest to deal with. The cities independents, both heroic and villainous. Right now, this was what kept her busy, reading Leet’s file, trying to figure out how he would strike back in retaliation for Ubers capture.

Then there was their file on Shadow Stalker, although it’d be a few days until Dauntless would take the time to update their file on her. It was also where Hellhound’s file used to be, and where there was an empty folder that just said “person responsible for Arcadia attacks”.

It was a mess, and she didn’t have the time, but she thought that now was as good a time as any to go through the entire stack for the first time in ages.

There was Trainwreck, a suspected case 53 tinker with a body-mod fetish. Low threat unless he needed gear for his body, he kept a low profile.

Circus, a grab-bag burglar with a flair for the dramatic. Annoying, hard to catch, but the risk she posed was minimal.

Grue, a mercenary shaker, capable of blocking sight and sound for everyone in his range. He probably wouldn’t ever be much of a problem, since his power also seemed to stop his allies. There was the possibility of a team-up with night, but the psych department’s best estimation of a profile said that he was a young black man, so that seemed unlikely.

The mayor’s sister had complained about a mind reader stealing her credit-cards. Utterly preposterous, but it wouldn’t look good if they didn’t at least take her seriously.

Then, someone calling herself Spitfire had been reported as stealing from a store somewhere, but besides the name, her file was empty.

Then there was Binary, a young woman that had tried to pawn of a large amount of gemstones and such, although most of the investigation on that was in WatchDog’s hands.

Birdman was an utter maniac, a devout Christian going of the deep end and using his powers to sabotage abortion clinics and punch drug dealers.

And of course the teleporting master thief, named Ocean by a PRT agent with a shoddy sense of humour, had taken up business in the city.

And those were the capes they had information on, and which had been confirmed to be capes. There were always about a dozen rumours a month about new capes, which at least half of the time turned out to be idiots pretending to have powers getting stabbed by a drug dealer.

Someone knocked on the door, and Piggot checked the small monitor hidden in her desk. Triumph.

“Come in”

The young man, child really, walked in, mask on his face.

“You wanted to see me ma’am?”

“Yes, about the Arcadia situation.”

“Its… I’m not sure what you want to know. Someone faked a supervillain attack, there was no enemy, no-one to stop, I don’t see what we could have done.”

Piggot sighed. It was something you often saw with Wards team leaders. Even if they could lead, they rarely had real initiative. He’d performed well in keeping everyone safe from possible villains, but that wasn’t what he should have been doing.

“Did you suspect it could have been a prank?”

“I, well, not really. I mean, I’ve heard or people sending prank messages over the PA system, but we checked the room, no-one was there. Plus, their voices sounded right.”

“So you kept searching for them, even when we already knew where they were from their stream. The problem, Triumph, is that you fell for a very simple distraction, meaning it took Shadow Stalker to actually solve the problem. Not only does that look very bad for the public, but what would have happened if someone chose to abuse the fact that you were distracted to, say, rob a bank?”

“I… I was just trying to protect people.”

“No Triumph, you were trying to protect the people in your school. You have a responsibility to this city, not just your friends, do you understand that?” She said, anger starting to show in her voice, but not yelling.

“Yes director Piggot, I understand.”

In the background, she could hear a massive Hellbeast bark thrice, indicating a find. At least the people there seemed to be enjoying themselves.

*** Gadget ***

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♦Topic: How do Tinkers generally get their stuff?

In: Boards ► America ► General Discussion ► Tinkers

 

Not_A_Criminal (Original Poster)

Posted on April 15, 2010:

 

So I was wondering, You know how Tinker build awesome tech and shit, how do you guys think they get the resources to build that shit? Like, say, if they needed a high-density power source capable of applying a low voltage with high Amperage, without taking up too much space, and not necessarily rechargeable? or more generally, how do they get their hands on stuff like Iridium and Cobalt? you can't just scan planets for that stuff and be done with it, so how do they do it? And, for discussion's sake, how would YOU do it if you were a Tinker?


	35. Chapter 35

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**♦Topic: How do Tinkers generally get their stuff?**  
  
 **In: Boards ► America ► General Discussion ► Tinkers**  
  
  
 **Not_A_Criminal** (Original Poster)  
  
Posted on April 15, 2010:  
  
  
So I was wondering, You know how Tinker build awesome tech and shit, how do you guys think they get the resources to build that shit? Like, say, if they needed a high-density power source capable of applying a low voltage with high Amperage, without taking up too much space, and not necessarily rechargeable? or more generally, how do they get their hands on stuff like Iridium and Cobalt? you can't just scan planets for that stuff and be done with it, so how do they do it? And, for discussion's sake, how would YOU do it if you were a Tinker?  
  
  
Edit: No I'm not a supervillain this is all for a school project  
  
  
 **(Showing Page 1 of 2)**  
  


**► Alucard_Of_Tibet** (Verified Police Girl)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I'm pretty sure that you should ask the protectorate for this...or just #YOLO it but that's your choice

 

**► The_Brickster** (verified Brocktonite)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I think you can get some of those things from meteorites. Otherwise, if you're a hero you get it from the Protectorate, if you're a villain you steal it from, I don't know, college chemistry labs or something.

 

**► LORD DOOMITRON** (Verified Cape)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I CAN INDEED VERIFY THAT A COLLEGE IS A GOOD PLACE TO AQUIRE RARE MATERIALS, AS THEY OFTEN USE THEM FOR EXPERIMENTS!!!

 

**► BingoDingo** (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Where do they get it? They either buy it, have it bough for them, or steal it.

 

Being a tad less glib, rare minerals are available (legally. Which I'm sure is very important for you since you're not, after all, a criminal) from science supply outlets. Iridium, for example, isn't exactly cheap, but you can get all you'd need for around $1400/ounce. Hopefully you don't need much, or have deep pockets.

 

**► Artichoker**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Why hello there my fellow law abiding citizen, I'm pretty law abiding myself.

Let's talk Cobalt, hypothetically. Now, it's used here and there as a pigment sure, but not a whole lot of it. Did you know that old hard drives use sizable samarium-cobalt magnets (to keep the head suspended in a temperature stable magnetic field, of course! It simply wouldn't do to have a crash because the room got a little warm) which are about 60% cobalt by mass? Though separation could be a bear if a (totally hypothetical) tinker needed the cobalt pure, their whole point is temperature stability. Plus, old hard drives are full of other fun little bits and pieces, especially the motors, their acoustic profiles are fantastic.

 

As far as power sources go, well, I'm sure you could find some lively discussion over at Tinker0 but most of their ideas will be stupid, impractical, dangerous, and/or fun. Hypothetically, depending on what you need, and what, exactly, is meant by "low voltage, high amperage", a (totally hypothetical) tinker might have some luck with capacitors. Did you know those cheap dollar store disposable cameras have some seriously beefy ones?

 

Also, hypothetically, I've read around these parts that even hypothetical tinkers tend to get abducted. Hypothetically anyway. Good thing you're totally not one, right?

 

**► KING_SENPAI** (Verified Jackass)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

A potential option for you is going to the toybox. They are the main refuge for tinkers who want to stay neutral in these United States to my knowledge.

 

**► Winged_One** (Unverified Cape)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I know where a large quantity of materials is being shipped out from, New York isn't quite as empty of shipping as people would think.

 

**► L@RD_Commander_Sand** (Not an actual Lord Commander)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

How the **** does she always find these frickn conversations?

 

**► LORD_DOOMITRON** (Verified Cape)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

AH, WINGED ONE!! I HAVE YET TO THANK YOU FOR YOUR INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROTECTORATE MWNE BEING AWAY FOR A MEETING!!! DO YOU HAVE ANY MORE INFORMATION OF THAT SORT FOR ME?!?

 

**► Brickrobot789**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Please don't give him any more info. My store got caught up in his looting spree the last time you did.

Also, definitely have to recommend the Toybox if you don't have an qualms about moving to a pocket dimension. They would have pretty much everything you need.

 

**► Aberranting** (Cape Groupie)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

In terms of power, I know a lot of Tinkers don't even use electricity - negating the need for any voltage/current sources! They tend to be the tinkers that make bigger stuff though, cars and giant tanks and armor suits. I think they use some kind of internal combustion engine, though it's probably some kind of magic tinker combustion. Maybe there's a tinker out there with a power-tool focus curing out really awesome chainsaws?

 

I'm sure there's a few tinkers that use miniaturize fission power sources, or some kind of controlled alpha-decay. There just have to be, right? But I don't really understand how those would even work. Actually, that's kind of a terrifying though - Around half of Tinker tech is basically a bomb if you don't treat it nice...

 

**► Not_A_Criminal** (Original Poster)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@ The Brickster

Any idea how tinkers get their hands on meteors? You'd think that, if people stole meteors, it'd be in the news. Also, wouldn't they be too big to steal? given how they can wipe out dinosaurs?

Also, does this mean there's Iridium in Dinosaur bones?

 

@ LORD DOOMITRON

Do you know if High School's also have that stuff? Because I heard lots of people get powers in highschool so do they just wait until they're in college?

 

@ Artichoker

I'm not asking hypothetically, I'm asking for a school project on Tinkers. And no, it's not for a friend's project either.

Also, does this mean there's supervillains that only steal old computers?

 

@ King Senpai

I'm asking a serious question why are you talking about toys? Is it because for supervillains getting their hands on Iridium is child's play? Also, why would tinkers go to a specific location for toys it doesn't make any sense because they're good with technology so they just play all their games on the internet. Or are you talking about maybe like a group of Tinkers that make a super cool video game only its not a game and when you steal money in the game you're actually stealing money in real life and that's how they get their money? Because that sounds like an awesome idea.

 

@ Wings

That sounds like a great idea only New York is really far away for the hypothetical tinker from my school project (which is not actually a real tinker but it is a thing for a school project okay.

 

@L@rd_Commander_Sand

Just wondering do you have a big wall out of sand and how do you make it keep standing up instead of falling over because that's what always happens if you build big stuff out of sand and I know its out of sand because I heard something about this guy over in Aleph that built a wall on the border with Canada out of ice which makes sense because ice is a lot like snow and that's his name. Also, how would a wall of sand help keep Moose out of the country?

 

@brickrobot789

How the fuck does an entire dimension fit into your pockets a person i learned about in a school project did the calculations and you'd need something bigger or have like giant pockets like MC Hammer in his giant pants.

 

@aberranting

Doesn't that mean every tinker is a bomb tinker? would a bomb tinker just be a tinker who couldn't build anything else? Is this guy I heard about in a different city called Leet turning into an explosion tinker? I need to know for a school project!

 

Also, if I understand Wikipedia correctly then alpha decay is when stuff turns into energy, if stuff turns into energy but the stuff is stuff made by a cape and disappears after a couple of hours does the energy then disappear too? so, like, if you used it to heat up hot choco and then the stuff disappeared would your choco suddenly be cold? Because someone I know absolutely hates hot choco.

 

**► Fibber_Biver**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Ladies and gentlemen the troll has arrived

 

**► Aberranting**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Not_A_Criminal

Pretty sure Leet's a specialist bomb tinker with the caveat that it fails to work properly (as a bomb) the first time he builds it, and does something else randomly instead. Pretty crippling, poor guy.

 

Your second question is confusing. Typically, when a cape "Creates" stuff, like a blaster shooting laser beams, the effects of the stuff they create remains after the stuff dissipates, otherwise, what, cars would magically get put back together right after being shot? Also, what on earth does Hot Coco have to do with anything? Is that some kinda euphemism?

 

**► Artichoker**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Not_A_Criminal

Take a look at [Megabyte](http:) from back in '04. He only stole computers. Not sure if that's because it's all he wanted to steal, or if it's all he got around to stealing before he, well, exploded mysteriously.

 

**► Tin_Mother** (Moderator)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

As a reminder for everyone in this conversation, both planning criminal activities and suggesting that other people are criminals, are against the rules.

 

**► Not_A_Criminal** (Original Poster)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Aberranting

 

What is so weird about hot choco? Do you not like it? Are you secretly a lizard-person or something?

 

**► Dragon** (Verified Cape) (The Guild) (Protectorate)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Generally speaking, most Tinkers either join the Protectorate or another such organization, or get press-ganged into a criminal enterprise. The few that do stay on their own, Blasto in Boston for example, often find that their need for supplies drives them into criminal action. While the experiments he wants to do are not necessarily illegal or dangerous to the populace, the need for resources pulled him into a life of crime. So, for your school project, I suggest you make a clear overview of the pros and cons of joining the Protectorate or the wards, versus going into a life of crime to support your tinkering.

 

I myself am proof that, when correctly nudged, the Protectorate can be very generous with resources

 

**► Redneck_Burmese_Kermit**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I do believe that the protectorate loans out small amounts of resources to rogue tinkers who register, so your hypothetical tinker could ask them.

 

@ Winged_One

 

HOW DID YOU FIND ME AGAIN?

 

**► LORD_DOOMITRON** (Verified Cape)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

IF IT IS A PARTICULARLY RICH HIGH SCHOOL THEN THEY COULD HAVE SOME. AS FOR THE WAITING BIT, MOST NEW TINKERS START OUT USING HOUSEHOLD APPLIANCES FOR THEIR MATERIALS. I BUILT MY FIRST STASIS GUN OUT OF A MICROWAVE AND A WATER PISTOL.

  
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**(Showing Page 2 of 2)**   
  


**► Swordmaster**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Fire alarms contain trace amounts of nuclear material. It is possible to literally transform an element into another element by alchemy, by which I mean nuclear reactions or nuclear decay.

I guess it's possible that tinkers are bullshit enough to make a mini nuclear reactor or something to turn elements into other elements.

 

Also, Iridium is naturally abundant at the geological boundary between the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary, in the exact spot where the dinosaurs turn extinct.

 

Aside from that, a bunch of semi-precious stones are actually compounds of metals and other stuff, so our purely hypthetical tinker would have to...rob a jewelry store.

 

**► The_Omega**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Iridium is fairly common anywhere a largish meteor had impacted, it's only rare because it doesn't occur naturally on Earth except in extremely uncommon circumstances, if at all.

 

**► Dingus_Dongus**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Best way to get cobalt is probably from rare earth magnets. Not the neodymium kind they sell everywhere in stores, the ones in old hard drives. A 1990s era harddrive could have roughly 20$ of samarium–cobalt magnets in it, and be picked up used for next to nothing, especially since you don't need working ones. Each harddrive could get you a few grams of cobalt, though separating the samarium would be a pain - the whole point of SmCo magnets is how temperature stable they are.

 

Plus, you get lots of other fun little bits from old harddrives, like tiny little high RPM motors!

 

Iridium would be a royal PITA to get if you need it in any real volume or purity. It's not hard to get trace amounts in various metal alloys, but separating it out again would be... challenging. The world only goes through around a dozen tons of the stuff a year, but trying to buy a pure chunk of it would be like trying to buy a similar weight of gold - doable, but expensive. Ofc, people are much more likely to ask questions about Iridium, whereas lots of people buy gold.

 

@ Omega

This isn't quite correct - Iridium occurs naturally in earth. Just like all the platinum-group metals, it's just rather dense, and likes to hang out with Iron, so they tend to sink towards the core, especially during early earth. Earth has plenty of Iridium, you just can't really get to it.

 

**► The_Great_Munchkin** (Verified Infokinetic) (Verified Eldrazi) (Verified no you're not)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

For the power source, if I were a Tinker I'd probably be able to build a mass canceller around a pair of accelerators. Assuming their mass was cancelled and they travelled in vacuum, twin pellets of heavy ice could be accelerated to relativistic speeds near-instantaneously with negligible energy expenditure. Set on a collision course with each other at a point right outside the accelerators, the pellets would undergo inertial confinement fusion upon impact, producing gamma radiation that could be collected as energy through either a basic steam engine (meh) or the photolelectric effect. Just remember that fusion reactions of light elements produce roughly a 6-megaton explosion per ton of fusion fuel, so if you have ice pellets of around 1 gram in your microfusion reactor, the resulting explosion would equal 6 tons of TNT. My suggestion would be to use really small pellets - unless you're building an Orion drive system or something.

 

For rare earth minerals, common soil will do if you have enough energy. The Curies refined uranium out of it just fine, and with enough energy you could just perform fractional distillation on it.

 

**► Shadow Jaeger**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Well, depending on what you need, typically it'd be simple. Go to electronics store or other general store offering item, buy or otherwise obtain it, bring it back to base, and Tinker the Shit out of it.

 

Rare minerals like Iridium, well, that's easy to find, if you know what it's used in and have some time to kill. Iridium can be found in fun things like spark plugs, particularly aviation ones, for instance.

 

**► Wavelength** (Shipper extraordinaire)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I...wow NAC, can you be any more obvious? This is just so sad that I feel almost obligated to pitch in. A lot of what you are looking for can already be found in consumer-grade electronics. For the up and coming Tinker on a budget, you might consider keeping an eye on your local corporations. Any reasonably well run corp is going to do tech refreshment constantly. Some will then donate their old computers and printers and other peripherals, some will return if they were only rented, and some will just junk them. That last category is something you can exploit, since you just need components or raw materials and don't need particularly high end stuff.

 

**► Lord_Mnementh** (Verified Vulcan) (Guy Not In The Know)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

*dons his tin-foil hat*

Nice to see criminals are finally trying to hide their evil ways, but I can see through you @Not_A_Criminal! Your villainous plan to make us think you're harmless will never succeed!

 

Oh, and you can get cobalt by extracting it from cobalt glass: Extraction of heavy metal ions from waste colored glass through phase separation

 

You can also extract other metals from other colored glass as well, you just need to find out what color glass comes from what added metal.

 

**► Sealord3000** (Shipper:literally) (Verified Rogue State)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

I saw this posted in the Best of PHO Board and just had to respond, first of all congratulations NAC on choosing the illustrious path of the inventor.

 

You are very likely in a place all us creative types were when we first started, and I would be remiss if I didn't give you the advice I wish someone had given me when I first felt the calling.

 

1\. Create a list of every known parahuman in your city, PHO can be a great way to get the lay of the land (or sea in my case), pay attention to what you could make if you wanted evade that cape/group. Do not forget to include any meddling state authority, you would be surprised how quickly you may end up on the wrong side of the law Even with the best of intentions.

 

2\. Resources: obviously from your post you are already thinking about this. My advice is to stop and consider that the number one way we are discovered is by tracking likely locations that materials are supplied. Those salvage yards, recycling centres and even large hardware stores are either under surveillance or pattern matching is run against purchases. Large power drains on the network are logged and investigated, energy discharge is tracked by satellite even in 'remote' or seemingly abandoned locations.

 

3\. Your Workshop, you will need to travel to and from this location constantly, and due to its nature you will want it to be secured, I have found that the best results by carving out tunnels to underground bunkers from legitimate fronts or places of residence. Once you do think you have a good location be sure to consider how you would escape if you were surrounded by hostile forces. Something that has occurred to me a few times in my career despite my best efforts.

 

As to answering your question, my flotilla routinely processes seawater for needed elements, but for something like iridium, we use unmanned submersible drones to mine the international seabed, and despite how some countries have slandered me, according to U.N resolution 895.445 it is perfectly legal.

 

If that option isn't open to you, I would suggest filing to create a corporation in one of these locations as an import company under your pseudonym then order whatever you need from reputable suppliers. If you need starting capital, any working computer running a beets proxy can connect to the Toybox online store (also a great place to buy meta materials) and they will accept blueprints or documentation, paying a fair price in untraceable digital currency.

 

If you dislike the toybox for some reason you could also try listing your plans on one of the dark net auction houses, but do not trust Anyone you meet on there.

 

All the best in the future, and if you ever find the heat too much where you are, the Flotilla would welcome another visitor, we are currently moving just north of Hawaii.

 

**► Not_A_criminal**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Swordmaster

 

So, Dinosaurs and jewerly? Is the universe trying to make supervillains more cliché?

 

@Dingus

oooh, tiny motors. Like, Tiny enough for tiny robotic spiders? no-one would notice because no-one ever looks at spiders.

 

@ Dragon

Good that I see you here I have this really great idea for containment foam that is at the same time also invisible except I secretly know you have already invented it so why don't we ever see you using it? or is that because it's invisible so you use it but no-one can ever see it? Also, what happens when you drop some on the floor?

 

@Munchkin

Yeah but what if you need to power source to build the mass canceller, like, hypothetically?

 

@Wavelength

 

For like the fiftieth time, I"m not a criminal, seriously you people... Do I need to go message Tin_Mother again? This is basically slander.

 

@Mnementh

Live long and prosper

Also, does that mean that people steal church windows now? you know, for the coloured glass?

 

@Sealord

Aren't you that guy that claimed an old oil platform and said it was a nation? Do you have a pet whale? Several pet whales? Do you live inside them in a secret base? Also, do you get salty from all that seawater? and how is the internet connection in the middle of the ocean?

 

Also, no way I'm seriously going to talk to something called the toybox. It's a stupid name.

 

 

**► Tin_Mother** (Moderator)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Not_A_Criminal

 

Given that your IP address isn't an actual, you know, IP adress, (And I'm actually rather interested in how you managed to do that!) Maybe you shouldn't complain to loudly when people think something fishy is happening.

  
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■

  
  
**♦Topic: Über & 1337 versus Arcadia high.**  
  
 **In: Boards ► America ► East ► North-East ► Brockton Bay ► Happenings**  
  
  
 **Brocktonite03** (Original Poster) (Veteran Member)  
  
Posted on April 15, 2010:  
  
  
So, America’s favourite (and only) live-streaming supervillain duo has decided to attack Arcadia. To the uninitiated, Arcadia is the school that’s rumoured to house most of the local wards, so, not a great idea.  
  
What’s their goal here? Epic loot? Reputation? Sneaking into the girls locker room?  
  
  
Edit: Scratch that, they seem to have planned a fake attack. A diversion for something more nefarious?  
  
  
Edit 2: Scratch that again, it turns out someone else pretended to be them in a fake attack on the school.  
  
  
Edit 3: And, in response to the pretend fake attack, it seems like the dynamic duo is preparing for a real attack on the school  
  
  
Edit 4: Scratch that, Über’s been taken down by Brockton Bay’s very own Dauntless, and someone called Shadow Stalker, who is not on the wards roster. Anyone know anything about this figure? Is she a possible new recruit?(would be the third in a row, if the speculation in the [Hell-Hound Thread](http:) is to be believed) Dauntless’s secret teenage lover? Or a collective hallucination?  
  
  
 **(Showing Page 1 of 27)**  
  


**► Kromagnum-ham** (Wiki Warrior)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Can confrm

hidng in bthrm atm on phone

they were on intercom

smashing sounds in the halls

 

**► ONEOFUS**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Shit man you too?

 

**► TwinToWin** (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Wait, aren't Ü&L the ones who do everything with a video game theme?

I've played a few games in my day, but I don't recall any about breaking into high schools...

Unless this is one of those games from Japan-Aleph (shudder)

 

**► Kromagnum-ham** (Wiki Warrior)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Loudspkr said game was bully, nevr plaed it. Title not mkng me hopeful.

From game wiki, prob safest near teachers since it was about avoidng them.

Bathroom loking like bad idea

 

**► ONEOFUS**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

 

@Kromagnum-ham

 

Yeah something big just entered the mens bathrooms....

 

**► SuaveTigre**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Ugh. Judging by Under&Limps """"coverage""" of Argenta's official debut, I'm guessing their end goal is to steal her gym shorts.

Welp, taking bets on who ends up arresting these morons. My money's on Triumph, but I'd hedge a bit on Glory Girl, she can cover more ground after all.

 

**► AkkadianConsort** (Not a Consort)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

$50 on a random trigger.

 

**_This account had been given an infraction for gambling, also, not a cool subject to gamble about-Steel Father_ **

 

  
**End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 25 , 26, 27**   
  
  


■

  
  
**(Showing Page 27 of 27)**   
  


**► GloryGirl** (Verified Cape) (New Wave)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@VoidCowboy

Like I said, it seems to have been just a weird out-of-control prank. I don't think claiming its all a conspiracy theory is very productive, instead, Arcadia should try to figure out they let this happen.

 

On the lighter side, just heard there'll be no school tomorrow while they investigate. Any suggestions on what gang to focus on on my new-found free day?

 

 

**► Silly_Tights**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@MrFairlead

I'm just saying that's not what "Feminist reinterpretation" means to any sane, rational human being.

Besides, how would this impersonator(s) even do that? Let alone why...

Hang up your foil-dora.

 

@GloryGirl

I've always been of the opinion that voluntary baldness and Nordic tattoos increase the punch-ability of the associated face by at least 47%.

 

 

**► Variable_Sheep**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

All these years later, and as soon as someone says the word "Feminist" the next person says "Lustrum". It makes me suspect deliberate trolling, especially since we now know this was some elaborate prank. Meh.

 

I'm much more interested in this "Shadowed Stalker".

Why the terrible costume?

Was she trying for an edgy name, overshot, and landed squarely in grimderp territory?

Why is Dauntless hugging her? Are they related?

 

**► Red_Head_Redemption**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Variable_Sheep

You're just too scared to do anything, at least Shadow Stalker actually fights criminals, you're just jealous of how awesome she is.

In case you hadn't noticed, Shadow Stalker is the one that's actually been keeping the streets clean.

 

**► 66Reaving_Shadow66**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Someone just put the Uber/Shadow Stalker fight up on youtube. Weird, usually they put it up themselves with some editing, but this seems to be a stream-rip. Although I guess Leet would be focused on breaking out his buddy, not internet bullshit. Awesome fight though, SS is looking pretty badass, just wish she was in the wards and we'd get to see more of her. I'd love a poster or something.

 

**► TwinToWin** (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@66Reaving_Shadow66

Nice footage! I really want someone to make a .gif of that midair crossbow into sack-tap. Silky smooth. It should forever adorn Über's wiki page.

 

Though that "Shadow-Splat" thing at the end is strange! She can turn other people into shadow? That's not on the wiki!

Or, really, even typically for breakers at all, I think.

 

**► Bagrat** (The Guy In The Know) (Veteran Member)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@TwinToWin

Eh, Powers are weird, also, looks like she overloaded herself there, Uber stands up before she does, even though she was in a better condition beforehand.

Might just be Uber's power though.

  
**End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 25, 26, 27**   
  
  


■

  
  
**♦Topic: Argenta joins the wards!**  
  
 **In: Boards ► America ► East ► North-East ► Brockton Bay ► Wards**  
  
  
 **Storm26** (Original Poster)  
  
Posted on April 12, 2010:  
  
  
A new thread for Brockton Bay’s newest ward. Argenta is a heavily armored electrokinetic and telekinetic. Pics of her in armor[here](http:), Link to her inauguration [here](http:).  
  
  
Edit: Pic of her in the armor's under-suit (not what you think) [here](http:), it's pretty sweet.  
  
  
 **(Showing Page 7 of 7)**  
  


**► Canadian_Mac_Canadianface** (Unverified Cape)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

So, I guess we can all agree that this is great news for all the teenage villains in B-Bay? I mean, wowzers. (Does anyone say wowzers?)

 

**► Kromagnum-ham** (Wiki-Warrior)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Canadian_Mac_Canadianface

 

Do we even *have* teenage villains? Like, there's... Rune? And... I'm drawing a blank here. I guess Hellhound? Though I hear she's off the street now. Plus she's only really a villain if you work at the Hannaford.

 

Do we have any male teenage villains? Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty sure we will soon now. Thanks, PRT.

 

In all seriousness though, thank you PRT. If not for Argenta, than at least for the decoys.

 

**► Valchallah**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Kromagnum-ham

You shame the great title of Wiki-Warrior!

Have you not heard tell... of the legend of the Grue?!

 

But, yeah, not a lot of teenage boys running amok in BB, powered ones anyway. I'd assume their deficiencies in long term planning lead to short careers.

 

**► COPPER_COPPA** (Verified Coppa)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

HEEEEELLLLLOOOO NURSE!

 

**► BaldurDash**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

So the PRT is billing her as a telekinetic and an electrokinetic? Like, two different powers? That seems unlikely, don't capes usually just have one power?

Why are they trying to sell us this dual power set? Is she actually some villain they shipped in from out of state with a well known power set they're trying to conceal? Do they really think we'll fall for that?

 

**► Sham82**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Baldurdash

Don't be ridiculous. The PRT doesn't just go around snatching up teenage super villains, obfuscating their identities, and trotting them out as wards.

 

**► BaldurDash**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

@Sham82

Oh yeah? Mark my words, by August we'll see HellHound debuted as the Pink Puppy Princess, and they'll be pretending she's some kind of bio-tinker with a dog focus.

 

**► TsoFly**

Replied on April 15, 2010:

So I wanted to make my mom's famous grill-steamed garlic shrimp tonight, but the store was all out of foil.

Thanks, @BaldurDash!

 

**► Argenta** (Verified Cape) (Wards ENE)

Replied on April 15, 2010:

Hi everyone!

 

Seven pages, just for me? wow! Amazing!

 

@BaldurDash

I can move stuff around around after putting my electricity in it, that's why I'm a telekinetic.

 

As for Hellhound...

  
**End of Page. 1, 2, 3 ... 5, 6, 7**


	36. Chapter 36

**Chapter 6.1**  
Hard drives, car exhausts, dinosaurs, fire alarms, jewelry stores, coloured glass. Most of those should be easy to gather, and there wasn’t any school today.  
  
First, however, I needed a place to stash my supplies. Which is why I was looking around the boat graveyard. Trying to find a nice empty ship to stash my shit in.  
  
Problem was, like half of them were stuck in the water, and not all that easy to reach. Especially not if I had to bring stuff. Maybe it’d be better to just find an abandoned building somewhere, in a place no-one ever noticed.  
  
Eventually, wandering around the shitty part of town, I found a building I could use. The area of town it was located in was called the docks, the building I had my eyes on looked like it had been abandoned for a while, and there was a window on the second floor I could climb up to without entering through the front door. It was hard, but I managed to stack a few dumpsters and somehow climb up. It didn’t even hurt too much, my limbs were almost healed. Once inside, I looked around. It seemed to have been some sort of office once, given the dust-covered cubicles. No-one had even attempted to clean it out, there were old chairs, paper, lots of stuff. No computers though, not on this floor. I wasn’t sure whether that was because they had been removed, or because the place was so old they didn’t have computers when it was made.  
  
No typewriters either. That was too bad, I’d always wanted to know how to make that little ding sound.  
  
Sneaking through the dust, I eventually found the stairs down, and figured out why no-one had entered the building. The entire bottom floor was covered in old police tape, there were a lot of gouges in the ground, what looked like acid had eaten away part of the floor, and the wallpaper was shredded and torn everywhere. Part of the room looked like it had been burned. Whatever had happened here, it’d been a long time ago. It was probably older than I was, although it looked like there’d been a cape-fight. One horrifying enough that no-one had returned here after the corpses had been removed.  
  
I could probably safely ignore this room. Plus, if I made noise, people would just think it was an angry spirit or something, and let me be. It was the perfect place for a secret base.  
  
I made my way back up the stairs, and explored further. There was a bathroom, that might have been sort of working, I could try, but, if I tried and it turned out it didn’t work, the entire base would be ruined. Instead, I looked further, seeing what I could find.  
  
There was an office with a big couch, a place I could sleep if I needed to. You know, after I built a black-light and checked the room. It also had an old computer. Maybe old enough to have one of those hard-drives the people on the internet had told me about. Should I try to fix it? Or just scrap it for parts? I could always bring my laptop if I needed to calculate or program something.  
  
That was about it for the second floor, so there was only one more to go.  
  
The third floor contained a few more cubicles, a big office with a massive desk chair, probably leather or something, and a small kitchen place. I checked, it wasn’t stocked, unless you counted the cobwebs  
  
I decided it would do, and grabbed one of my power tools, it was time to transform those cubicles into a workspace.  
  
*** Gadget ***  
  
It had been a lot of exhausting work, but I was done by the time dad called, asking when I was coming home for dinner. I informed him I’d start on my way home, and would be there in half an hour.  
  
I looked back at my new workshop, an array of tables making a massive workbench, I’d fixed up this shitty place enough to make sure I could get started on the materials, I even cleaned the massive chair, on which I could sit, twirling around and stroking my evil goatee, you know, if I had one of those.  
  
I went back to the broken window I’d used to enter, and worked my way down. It was slightly harder than getting up, but whatevs. My journey out of the docks was uneventful. It was still light out, and the drug dealers weren’t even around yet.  
  
I’d need something to protect myself, or maybe just put on my helmet the next time I went to my new secret base.  
  
Eventually, I caught the bus back, and realized that I’d completely wasted my day without getting any tinkering done.  
  
Sure, I”d managed to set up a base… but I really wanted to start working.  
  
Well, tomorrow would be Saturday, so I could get shit done then.  
  
  


***

  
The Boston zoo was nice, I had to admit, the meerkats were utterly adorable, the lions were properly ferocious but also lazy, the penguins had amazing little suits, and the monkeys were very good at throwing shit at the other guests.  
  
It wasn’t the same as getting my tinker on, but I had something better. I had my dad in the insect department.  
  
“Dad, look, tarantulas!”  
  
He averted his eyes a bit, and stepped forward slowly, trying to overcome his fear.  
  
“Why is it fuzzy? I thought only mammals had hair, that’s what the biology book said.”  
  
“They’re not really hairs, they’re a defence mechanism. Those hairs are called urticating hairs, they irritate the skin of whatever touches them.”  
  
“So, like cactuses?”  
  
“Yeah, although the proper word to use in this situation is cacti”  
  
“Cuz its Latin?”  
  
“I think so, yes.”  
  
I ran on to the next room of the terrarium. The tarantulas, and dad overcoming his fear, had been fun, but they weren’t as cool as the snakes. I absently wondered if I should ask for a snake for my next birthday. It’d be really cool, and I could spam Emma with snake pictures which would freak her out, but having to feed it mice all the time didn’t seem like a good idea. Although, maybe I could sneak one into my gadgetspace, although… what if it didn’t work? Or it’d be the same every time it came out? It seemed like something horrible to do with an animal, especially a cute little snake in front of me, licking at the glass in front of my face.  
  
Still, they had a python here, behind the thick glass. Just lounging around. Dad was walking even slower now. Was he more afraid of snakes than insects?  
  


*** Armsmaster ***

  
Colin could only wish he’d thought about this before taking Sely on a road-trip to the zoo.  
  
Sure, he’d gotten the entire day off, and Sely probably needed something to cheer her up after what had happened at school, but snakes…  
  
When he saw how tired she’d been after coming home yesterday, he’d decided to bring her here. He’d always like the zoo as a kid, and Sely looked to be enjoying herself.  
  
The problem was that the spiders reminded him of a villain he’d once fought. A biokinetic striker that could greatly increase the size of any animal he touched, and gained a slight amount of control over them.  
  
One giant spider had been okay, a hundred of them though…  
  
The snakes were worse, they just reminded him of the massive worm Blasto had brought the one time he’d visited Brockton Bay for a trip. He’d had to fight his way out from the inside, which, while making for a great story, had also gotten him to be absolutely covered in slime and worm guts. It’d taken him a day to get all the gunk out of his armour.  
  
But, it looked like Sely was happy, so remembering the bad stuff was a small price to pay. And he’d won those battles, he could make his way through the terrarium.  
  
“So, Sely, do you want to talk about what happened Thursday?”  
  
She looked at him, her grey-green eyes showing his reflection in them.  
  
“Dunno…” she went silent.  
  
He put his hand on her head, and messed up her hair a bit. “c’mon you little whippersnapper, let’s get something to eat.”  
  
They left the terrarium, and made their way to the restaurant, which had an aquarium wall. It was nice, watching the fish while eating their kin. It’d be better if he replaced the glass with a forcefield that stopped water and fish, while letting people through. It’d mean there was more of a possibility for interaction, but not everyone could build tinker-tech of that calibre.  
  
“I hate being injured…” Sely said.  
  
“Well you know what the doctor said, just a week and they’ll remove the cast on your leg.”  
  
She sighed. She was obviously not very happy about the time-frame. He wondered again whether or not he should’ve asked Panacea for help, but knowing how Sely had reacted to the notion of parahumans…  
  
They sat in silence for a few minutes, neither of them knowing what to talk about.  
  
Until he noticed someone in the crowd that he recognized. A woman he’d known for quite some time, almost since he’d joined the protectorate.  
  
Mouse Protector was on the prowl, and it’d only be a matter of seconds until she-  
  
“Hey Colin, long time no see!” her voice echoed through the lunch restaurant. Kate had no idea about the concept of indoor voices, in or out of costume.  
  
Sely looked in her direction, “Who’s that?”  
  
“Someone I used to work with, we went to college together for a while.” He replied. Not telling her that, unlike the others, he’d decided not to pursue a full college education while hero-ing. None it actually helped him with his powers, and the engineering classes had been rather boring.  
  
“Hey now beardsley, who’s this little squirt?” Kate said, pretending not to know about Sely.  
  
“I’m not a squirt!” she replied.  
  
Kate had grabbed a chair from somewhere. And had started stealing his fries.  
  
Sely, determined not to be out-done, had decided to go for his food as well.  
  
This was why he never visited Boston…  
  
“So, how’d you find us anyway?” he asked. It couldn’t be a coincidence, but then again, he hadn’t informed anyone in Brockton where he was going, except that he’d be in Boston.  
  
He’d need to have a word with Assault…  
  
“You know, I guess I just had a hunch!”  
  
Her thinker, that explained a lot.  
  
“So, squirt, what do you think about elephants?”  
  
“They’re okay, I gotta say I prefer giraffes though.”  
  
“Yeah, giraffes are pretty cool. Didya know a local villain named Blasto made a giant giraffe once?”  
  
“A giant giraffe? How’d that work?”  
  
“Not all that well, there’s a reason he only ever made the one. It kept falling over, with legs taller than most buildings. Its neck was cool though, it could twist it into all kinds of shapes, kind of like a balloon animal!”  
  
Collin suddenly remembered the attack, and the subsequent backlash against Mouse Protector from animal rights groups. It had been one of Blasto’s less effective plans. Also plants, the giraffe, like almost everything else Blast made, had been at least partly plant.  
  
“So, why’d you ask about the elephants?” Sely asked, being the one to bring a conversation back on-topic for once.  
  
“Well, I happen to know one of the zookeepers, and I just might be able to con him into letting you help feed them!”  
  


***

  
Colin wasn’t sure what to think. The girls, that is, Sely, Mouse Protector, and the twenty something zookeeper, were all busy playing with a baby elephant in the middle of the inside enclosure, a place normally forbidden to guests. He was leaning against a large iron bar, checking his mail on his phone.  
  
There was another complaint from the youth guard about Argenta’s behavior, a status report from Battery, stating that she thought Rachel would be ready for her first patrol tonight, a quick overview of the current status of the gangs, a request for Iridium and Cobalt by Kid Win, who had gotten some ideas about anti-gravity and mass-cancellation and wanted to test them, and a memo from Dragon about upcoming Endbringer attacks.  
  
Behemoth had struck the C.U.I. in January, and been driven back after Scion interfered. That meant the next attack would be the Simmurgh, or perhaps Leviathan. Dragon speculated that the next strike would be somewhere in Europe, and he agreed, based on his prediction program. It had been a simple time-wasting project, nothing serious, but he’d correlated atmospheric data, seismic activity, and crime statistics, and been able to come relatively close to predicting Endbringer attacks in retrospect.  
  
He still wasn’t sure on what to do. Everything he believed him screamed at him to fight the beasts, to drive them back for the sake of humanity. But, when he looked at his daughter.  
  
If he died. It’d be like failing her all over again. Leaving her all alone in the world, with nothing but a brain-damaged mother that hated her, blaming her for all that had gone wrong.  
  
But would Sely want a father that was too afraid to do what needed to be done? If he died fighting an Endbringer, at least she could be proud of him. And he knew what the survival rates were like. Sure, they were low, for first-timers. Experienced people, capes that had fought all of them before, they tended to do better.  
  
Plus, he’d have an excuse to see dragon again, not over a computer, but in the flesh, or steel in her case. Sure, it was still remote-control, but it was somehow more real.  
  
… Except he’d made a promise to Sely, about what he’d do the next time he met her. He could file her virtual presence away as not being real, but her mech-suits…  
  
How the hell did you ask a twelve-feet-tall robot out for coffee?  
  
His thought process was interrupted by a trunk sniffing at his ears. He looked behind him, and saw a rather large elephant bull at the other side of the massive iron bars, that had taken an interest in him. He looked at the beasts eyes, and saw that it was looking at Sely and the elephant puppy, who were now almost rolling over the floor.  
  
“Kids huh.” He said. The beast snorted in agreement  
  
When they left, it was nearing closing time, the zookeeper told them to go ahead, she’d lost the keys somewhere and needed to close up. Colin looked at Sely, she didn’t have anything in her pockets she hadn’t had before, and there were no outlines visible in her sling either. Hannah had probably just been paranoid, and perhaps slightly annoyed at Sely’s apparent dislike of her.  
  
Kate left them on the way back to the car, stating work issues. Colin checked his phone a final time, and noticed a report flagged important. He skimmed through the message. It turned out that some of the small players in the city had united. Trainwreck, Grue, Circus, and two unidentified figures had struck a jewelry store, taking both what was on display, and the more valuable things in the safe. Strange, that they had gotten access to it so easily. Luck? An applicable power? Or was it an inside job?  
  
No-one had gotten hurt though, so it could wait until tomorrow.  
  
”Dad?” Sely mumbled, she was getting sleepy  
  
“Yes?”  
  
“Today was fun.”


End file.
